


The Coulson Family Hero Complex

by Maeday



Category: Amazing Spider-Man (2012), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-11-20 17:46:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 26,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maeday/pseuds/Maeday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter has boring dads. Pop is an accountant and Dad calls himself a "stay at home parent." Boring. They'd never understand the burden that he feels to help people after accidentally giving himself spider-like super powers. Or would they?</p><p>Eventually diverges from movie canon.</p><p>Filled for avengerkink.livejournal.com<br/>Full prompt inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Full prompt:
> 
> "So, instead of Steve and Tony adopting Peter Parker and raising him in the public eye, Clint and Coulson retire from superheroing and the herding of superheroes, live completely boring lives, and adopt Peter Parker. He thinks his dads are a completely boring accountant and whatever Clint does. 
> 
> Peter has no idea what his parents used to do, who they used to be. Maybe Natasha comes around every once in awhile, or maybe something happened and Clint&Coulson were the only survivors and that’s why the retired, I dunno.
> 
> But somehow, Peter still gets his powers anyway. And he tries to hide it because he knows his dads will freak – but Coulson figures it out almost immediately, and Clint’s not far behind. 
> 
> *shrugs* Essentially, I want Clint&Coulson, masquerading as the most boring neighbors in the world, to raise Spider-Man."
> 
> http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/12672.html?thread=28047488#t28047488

Phil and Clint had known from the beginning of their professional relationship that Clint had a very high chance of being injured on the job. He never left a mission without bumps and scrapes and he came back with more serious injuries more often than Phil liked as his handler, and _far_ more often than Phil later felt was necessary after the two of them had bucked up and talked about their _feelings._ Being with the Avengers was even more of a strain on Clint’s body - especially with his pathological need to be just as good as everyone else, even when everyone else happened to be a team made up of entirely enhanced beings; except for Clint, the “human element.” Fury’s words.  

And it hadn’t helped that Clint was also nearly the oldest on the team, beaten out by Stark by a full eight months, and Rogers didn’t count. There was a time when the human body wasn’t supposed to take that much damage any more and that time had come three years into working with the Avengers, when a particularly vicious array of supersized rabid wolves had taken on New York _yet again_ , and Clint hadn’t managed to move in time. Clint had gone down under one wolf’s claws, taking a more serious injury than he could recover from. He’d writhed on the rooftop in silent agony, too proud and too trained to take anyone from the battle while he tried to hold himself together with his own hands. It wasn’t until Stark mentioned that it looked like the wolf ranks were thinning out and started congratulating the team before the battle was over as usual that Clint had gasped for help into his comm.  

Natasha had been the first one there and she had refused to go back to the battle while she screamed for medical into her comm - screamed in a way that Phil had never heard before and he knew at that point that his partner wasn’t going to be going on any more missions. He was on the medical chopper that landed on the rooftop to pick up the downed agent and Phil hadn’t been able to look away from the puddle of blood around Clint’s body and his white, blood covered hands trapped under Natasha’s. He was still awake at that point and he tried to give Phil a smile but there was blood in his teeth and it came out as a grimace.  

Clint had survived, barely, and had been told that he wouldn’t be going on missions anymore. He was officially retired at that point and Phil wasn’t long behind him, not when Clint spent hours in physical therapy and then any left over in their apartment, trying to keep himself from doing anything to open the hideous wounds back up even months after the mission. An inactive Clint was a depressed Clint and Phil found himself taking more and more time away from work just to make sure that his partner didn’t fall apart until he finally just retired quietly and Sitwell stepped forward to take his place as “Avenger Babysitter.” Stark’s words. By then the team wasn’t much like the original, there was more members of the team, a whole team of just handlers to keep watch on them, and Phil had known that before Clint was injured he had been starting to feel a bit out of place with all of the superhumans he lived with. 

Phil had politely asked that the Avengers not try to visit Clint and remind him of what he used to be able to do and that polite request was enough to slowly remove the Avengers from their lives until a year after the injury, it was like neither Clint nor Phil had been part of the Avengers at all. Only Natasha continued to visit and Clint accepted her with a smile and laughter but there was an edge of longing too it when he looked at her, as young as ever thanks to Red Room experimentation, and remembered all the missions that they’d gone on together - good or bad. Eventually even Natasha stopped visiting as often until she rarely came by at all. It was just as painful for her to see her long time partner unable to do much more than sit on the couch and shout abuse at the television. 

A year and a half into their retirement, Clint had glanced over at Phil with the look in his eye that meant nothing good, and said quietly, with an almost teasing smirk on his face, “What do you think about starting a family?”  

Phil hadn’t been stupid enough to think that it was just a joke. Clint didn’t joke about things like family. “We are a family,” he had said carefully. 

Clint had shrugged. “What do you think about expanding our family to include a rugrat?” he had amended. 

And that thought had been enough to start the both of them in the adoption process, while Phil got a job as an accountant, something that Clint never stopped finding hilarious, and Clint had just been the stay-at-home guy that joked with the neighbors and dragged Phil to neighborhood cookouts that Clint secretly loved because they gave him a life that he’d never had. And even though it seemed boring, this normal life was as new and strange to Clint as being a secret agent would be to Ted and Barbara down the street. 

Phil knew that Fury had some hand in speeding up the adoption process because it wasn’t six months later that Phil and Clint went to pick up their new son from his foster family, a young Peter Parker whose parents had died young, whose uncle had been killed in a drive by shooting, and whose aunt had followed soon after from old age and grief. Peter was four when they adopted him, just old enough that he wasn’t sure about having a new dad, much less two.  

Clint had just giving the kid his most blinding smile and asked him what his favorite sport was though and Peter had opened up like a flower to the sun and in that moment, when Phil saw the brightest smile on his partner’s face, he knew that this giant change in their lives was worth it - if only to see that smile on Clint’s face again.  


	2. Chapter 2

Clint stopped being able to help little Peter with his homework when Peter reached eighth grade and was unable to help him with his science long before then. Of course Clint and Phil knew about Peter’s father’s scientific work and it was no surprise to either of them that Peter seemed to have taken after his father’s science geared brain. Phil and Clint encouraged him to work on his skill in science as much as they could without knowing much about it. Clint was a math person, trigonometry and angles and things leftover from his years as a sniper. Phil had a little bit of everything. But the fact remained that Peter soon outstripped both of them in science and they helped him along as much as they could - generally in the way of extra curricular science fairs and competitions and such.

Phil knew about the OSCORP internship opportunity and he just knew that Peter was going to be interested in it but he took one look at Dr. Curtis Connors, quietly called a few favors to get the file that SHIELD had on him, and knew that it would be a bad idea to send Peter into a situation with a probably mentally unstable scientist whose goal was to wipe imperfections and injuries from the earth.

And Phil knew from Peter’s internet history that Peter spent an excessive amount of time looking up such theories - almost always after being privy to Clint wincing after hitting his side on the counter or gasping from reaching too high. The injury was long healed but the internal damage would hurt Clint for the rest of his life and Peter was a smart boy, he could see that his dad was hurting no matter how hard Clint tried to hide it.

Phil chose to leave the accounting office early. After nearly thirteen years of working there he had earned more than a little leeway. One of Peter’s teachers had shot him an email about Peter fighting on school grounds - that he hadn’t been caught and sent to the principal but since Phil considered himself at least strong acquaintances with this teacher he found out about Peter’s tendency to get into trouble even if the principal wasn’t notified.

Clint was home when Phil opened the front door, in the kitchen blasting some 80s rock ballads that Phil had learned to love after a long, long time. It smelled like Clint was making cookies or some other kind of ridiculously sugary, fattening food that he loved so much. Clint went to the gym regularly to work off the extra calories of his largely otherwise sedentary lifestyle, doing as much as he could with his injury. But having a horrific torso injury meant that he couldn’t do much to keep his stomach flat as it had been and Phil wouldn’t tell anyone, and certainly not Clint, but he loved the little bit of extra pudge around his partner’s middle.

There was no doubt that Clint had noticed Phil come in and was pretending not to have. Clint’s spatial awareness naturally took a hit after thirteen years as a civilian but he still had years worth of training and instincts that kept him on his toes. Phil tossed his suit jacket on the back of one of the kitchen chairs and walked up behind Clint to wrap his arms around Clint’s hips, below the scars, and put his chin on Clint’s shoulder. Clint kept dancing slightly in place. 

“What are you making?” Phil asked.

“Cookies,” Clint answered cheerfully.

“Yes, I can see that. I meant what kind,” Phil responded, motioning slightly to the variety of unconventional ingredients on the counter.

“I’m trying pineapple, cranberry, white chocolate peanut butter again,” Clint answered, waving the wooden spoon his hand that he was using to partial out the dough into little balls to go into the oven. 

Phil huffed a laugh into Clint’s throat and left a kiss on his shoulder blade. “I’m sure they’ll be as interesting as they were last time,” he allowed. He backed off so Clint could move more around the counter. “I got an email from one of Peter’s teachers saying that he got in a fight again today. But he was apparently defending another student.”

“Like father like son. Strong sense of justice and all that.”

“I’m not sure which father you’re referring too,” Phil teased.

Clint glanced over at him with a sly smile. “Oh I wouldn’t say ‘sense of justice’ if I was talking about myself.”

Phil rolled his eyes. It was an old argument - much like many of their arguments. “I’m going to change into something more comfortable. Don’t let Peter escape to his room when he gets home.”

“I’m never going to get used to you ‘not being comfortable’ in suits and ties,” Clint called after him as he made his way down the hall towards the bedroom. Phil didn’t bother responding. Clint said the same thing every time. 

He was brushing his teeth in jeans and a soft tshirt that had been Clint’s at some point when he heard the front door open again and Clint call “hey, honey!” loudly and with enough forced cheerfulness that Peter was forced to slink into the kitchen to respond. Phil finished up in the bathroom and went out into the kitchen to see Peter sulking at the kitchen island with a growing bruise around his eye.

“Fighting again?” Phil teased.

“No,” Peter pouted. “I didn’t even touch him. He hit me first.”

“Was it that kid with the stupid nickname?” Clint asked like he hadn’t done a background check on every kid in Peter’s class.

“Yeah… Eugene… he didn’t like it when I called him that in front of everyone,” Peter muttered.

“That sounds about as bad as the time Tony called you Clinton Francis in front of the whole office,” Phil said to his partner. They were always careful to only use the first names of the Avengers and refer to the team as “the office” in front of Peter. 

Clint rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong he was just being obnoxious.” He pushed the cookie sheet into the oven and set the timer. “So why’d you bother him?”

“He was trying to make this other kid eat something upside down. Just… being a bully,” Peter answered.

Clint nodded with false sageness. “Ah yes, the school yard bully. I remember it well.” 

Peter and Phil rolled their eyes. They’d never bothered to keep the fact that Clint had never finished high school from Peter. Or the fact that he didn’t have any parents or that he lived with a traveling circus for a while. They never, ever mentioned Barney. 

“So anyway, I have something to ask you guys,” Peter said with a nervous twitch of his fingers. They looked at him expectantly and Phil had a sinking feeling that he already knew what Peter was going to ask. “There’s an internship opportunity at OSCORP and I’d like to apply for it.”

“No.”

Peter and Clint both looked at Phil in surprise. Phil knew that he was making some kind of sour face and Peter looked somewhere between angry at being shot down and upset about it. “Why not?”

“Because… OSCORP… I’m your father and I said so,” he finished lamely. Clint was giving him one of those ‘we-are-discussing-this-later’ looks. 

“But… Pop,” Peter tried, “this is a really big deal and OSCORP is a huge opportunity and they’re well respected in the scientific community and if I got it it would open up tons of doors into scientific careers for me. Pop,” his voice took on a wheedling tone as he tried to throw out all of the talk about his future and things that Phil knew that he had beaten into the ground with Peter by now trying to get his son to start thinking about careers and such. 

“Yeah, Phil,” Clint agreed quietly. “Why not?”

Phil’s lips thinned and he wrapped an arm around Clint’s waist and drew him close to his side. Clint didn’t understand the look that Phil was shooting Peter’s way but Peter sure as hell did and he had the good grace to look chastised. Clint raised his eyebrows in question but Phil just squeezed his hip lightly and pressed a kiss to the side of his neck. “Clint, if you don’t mind, could Peter and I talk about this… alone?”

Clint’s eyebrows shot up in surprise at that and he looked like he might get pissy about it. There was almost nothing that Phil and Clint didn’t talk to Peter about together. They kept no secrets from each other. But Phil gave Clint a small smile and smoothed his hand over Clint’s side, “I’ll talk to you about it later. I just need to talk to Peter first, okay, babe?” 

“I’m not happy about it but okay,” Clint conceded. 

Phil let him go slowly. “I’m not expecting you to be. I’ll tell you later.” He patted Clint’s ass when his partner walked by and Clint made a diva-like huffing noise and retreated to the bedroom.

Peter was looking down at the counter when Clint left the room. He glanced up at Phil, attempting to do puppy dog eyes with same way Clint did them and he got damn well close. “Why can’t I at least try, Pop?”

“Because I know why you want to do it. The whole ‘no flaws, no injuries, no disease’ motto that Dr. Connors drags around is what caught your eye, isn’t it? You just want to be a part of something that could fix your dad,” Phil said without judgement.

Peter looked down again. “Wouldn’t you want to?” he accused quietly.

“Peter, look at me,” Phil ordered. Peter looked up. “I would do a lot of things to fix what happened to Clint but I wouldn’t do it with Dr. Connors. There’s a lot about him that I don’t trust and I would really rather you didn’t get your hopes up over something that’s not been proven to do anything to help people who are disabled. And I know that Clint won’t want you trying for this just because of him. You’re not even that interested in genetics!”

“I just want to help!” 

“Don’t raise your voice at me,” Phil snapped. He immediately deflated though and sighed as he ran a hand over his face. “I know you just want to help. I want you to be able to help. But I also want you to be aware that not everything is always as it seems, alright? Clint likes the life that he has right now. He’s not pining away for the way things were before the accident. He’s fine. He’s functional. And he’s happy.”

“He’s in pain,” Peter tried to break in.

Phil kept talking over him. “He won’t want you wasting your time trying to fix him when he doesn’t want to be fixed. I don’t want you trying for that internship because I know that even if you claim that you want to work with genetics and cross species whatever for the good of the world, deep down it’s just going to be because you don’t want your dad to be in pain. It’s okay but I don’t want that eating your life.”

Peter bit down on his lip and Phil knew he wanted to argue more. He sighed. “Go to your room, Peter. There are plenty of other internships out there. I need to talk to your dad about it.”

“Dad’ll let me go,” Peter said sulkily.

“Not after I explain to him what’s in your internet search history,” Phil replied.

“Pop!” Peter shouted. “You can’t invade my privacy like that! I have a lock for a reason!” 

“I’m your father, Peter, I need to look out for you,” Phil answered. “Just… go to your room.”

Peter huffed angrily and stomped his way over to his backpack, swung it onto his shoulder, and then stomped up the stairs. Phil let out the breath he’d been holding when he heard Peter’s door slam. A gentle touch on his arm almost startled him but he had assumed that Clint would slip out of the bedroom when he heard Peter yelling. 

“Phil, you should let him go.”

“He just wants to try to fix you. That’s the only reason. And Dr. Connors is… shifty. I don’t trust him and I don’t trust him with you and I don’t trust him with Peter.” He turned and pulled Clint to his chest. “Just go with me on this one, alright? Peter needs to stay away from this. It’s only going to hurt him.”

“Whatever you say,” Clint answered, muffled against his chest. 

Phil leaned down slightly to kiss him.

The timer for the cookies went off. 


	3. Chapter 3

Peter knew, way deep down that his parents just wanted to look out for him and that his pop had been very serious about his “no OSCORP internship” policy but… there was also a part of him that just absolutely knew that he needed to be a part of this research, that he could help in something that could fix his dad. 

So he went anyway, didn’t even bother to call his parents to tell them that he was going somewhere after school. They would know that he was lying and he would rather just say nothing than lie to them. He was going to pay for it later but when he walked into the OSCORP building with his bag slung over his shoulder and the glasses that he’d gotten as a kid because they looked like the reading ones that his dad wore, he felt like he was where he was supposed to be.

The receptionist proved tricky and he only felt a little bit bad about taking the name tag that didn’t belong to him. His cellphone lit up when he merged with the back of the tour group and when he looked down at it he saw “Pop: if you are at OSCORP right now you’re going to be in so much trouble when you get home” and also “Dad: where are you?” Dad sure as hell knew where he was, Pop was probably ranting about it right that minute. 

And then he heard Gwen’s voice and he did his very best to tuck himself behind the guy in front of him. Dad would tease him about bad ninja skills if he was there. 

Dr. Connors appeared and Peter couldn’t help but peek out to see the man whose research could potentially change his dad’s entire life. Peter had already known about Dr. Connors’s lack of arm but it was a little startling to see it there, the stump just poking out of his turned up sleeve like he didn’t care if anyone saw it. He probably didn’t after being disabled for so long.

“I want to create a world without weakness,” Dr. Connors said after a slight spiel featuring people slowly dying of a disease in an attempt to get sympathy for them from the interns. Peter had wanted to roll his eyes at that - Pop had drilled it into him from very early on to always be aware when someone was trying to play with your emotions. Given that his pop seemed perpetually unswayed by anyone but his partner, Peter figured it was a safe bet to follow his Pop’s advice. “Anyone care to venture a guess just how?”

Peter’s heart raced and he wanted to shout out the answer but some eager beaver in the front raised his hand like a middle schooler and said, “Stem cells?” Peter rolled his eyes at that. This kid came to OSCORP without learning what their most impressive research was about?

“Promising, but the solution I’m thinking of is more… radical. No one?”

Peter kept his voice level and quiet, “Cross-species genetics.” Dr. Connors looked pleased with the answer. And all of the other interns turned to look at him. Did none of them come prepared? “A person gets Parkinson’s when the brain cells that produce dopamine start to disappear but the zebra fish has the ability to regenerate cells on command. If you could somehow give this ability to the woman you’re talking about that’s that… she’s… she’s curing herself.” He couldn’t keep eye contact for a moment with Dr. Connors because all he could think about was his dad somehow being able to heal himself.

“Yeah you just have to look past the gills on her neck,” an upstart student tried to joke.

Dr. Connors looked thrown. “And you are?”

Peter was saved from having to respond when Gwen said, “He’s one of Midtown’s best and brightest. He’s second in his class.”

“Second,” Peter challenged. “You sure about that?”

“Yeah pretty sure,” she answered. Dr. Connors left to take a phone call and Gwen distracted the rest of the group with some giant holo projection that Peter had already seen repeatedly online. He tried to sneak past but Gwen immediately followed him.

“Hi,” she said with cheerfulness he could tell was false. “What’re you doing Rodrigo?”

He looked down and pulled at his name tag self-consciously when she gave it a pointed look. “Oh yeah…”

“I work here. I don’t work here. I was going to say I work here but…” he started tripping over himself.

“What are you doing here?” she asked again.

Well, Dad had always said, ‘When in doubt, tell part of the truth like it’s the whole truth so help me God.’ “I love science. I’m passionate about it.”

She didn’t look convinced but she said. “Stay with the group. Do _not_ get me in trouble.”

“Right,” he agreed. And then as soon as she took the group off to another section he turned around and to go exploring. And immediately ran into someone. 

The other man glared at him when Peter picked up his folder and noticed the strange looking symbols on the first sheet of paper inside it. He grabbed the folder from Peter’s hand and took off and Peter couldn’t help but be suspicious - not after all those times that his parents had told him again and again to watch for someone’s body language, be aware of what they are feeling, and always be aware if someone is trying to hide someone.

So he did what his dad would have done and followed the suspicious guy with the folder.

Pop had told him once, for whatever reason Peter couldn’t remember, that the key to following someone was to act like you belonged there. The person you’re following might not see you following them but if you’re suspicious looking, the people around you will. When in a situation where you are surrounded by people, your best disguise is looking like you belong there. So he did his level best to act like his “Intern” badge was an invisibility shield.

Peter followed the man to a room locked by the kind of fancy looking system that Peter would have drooled over if he hadn’t been busily trying to watch for the code. Two guys in rubber gloves and white coveralls emerged from the “Biocable Development Unit”, exchanged low whispers with folder guy, and left. Once they were safely away, Peter gave into the temptation of curiosity and crept over to the door, put in the code that he had seen the other guy do, and stepped into whatever top secret room was behind the door. 

There was a lot of tech inside that Peter would have loved to spend the rest of his life staring at lustfully if his heart wasn’t ready to pound right out of his chest. He was soon distracted by a room bathed in blue with something large spinning inside it. He gave into temptation and opened the door and stepped in even though as soon as he did he knew it was probably a bad idea. But hey, the door wasn’t locked so it couldn’t be that bad.

And it was a very good thing that Peter wasn’t unnerved by spiders because the room seemed to consist only of spiders under a blacklight spinning their webs on a giant metal frame. He couldn’t help himself from reaching out to touch one of the thicker strands experimentally. Naturally, something beeped and the whole spinning contraption ground to a halt. And then spiders started falling on his head. He bit back the urge to scream and kept his mouth closed while trying to frantically brush them off his clothes and shake them out of his hair. And that was quite enough for him. He left the room before anything else could drop on his head or someone came looking to see why the blue spider room wasn’t working.

Peter escaped from OSCORP without anyone noticing his hurry to leave or the skateboard caught under his arm.

———

Phil was angrily pulling on his jacket while Clint was still sending his very innocent “where are you?” text to Peter. Phil hadn’t even bothered to wait for the reply that certainly wasn’t coming. As soon as he had hit send he’d all but slammed his phone down on the kitchen table and went for his jacket. Clint watched him from a safe distance - thinking about the times when he used to watch Phil get angry over things like dead agents or Clint getting in the way of one too many bomb radiuses. Now the great Phil Coulson got this angry over their son sneaking around to do whatever he wanted.

“Phil, babe, chill out,” Clint said lightly.

Phil glared at him. “No I will not ‘chill out.’ I expressly forbade him from going to that internship thing and he went anyway and he is grounded for the rest of his life now.”

“I do stuff that you expressly forbid me from doing all the time,” Clint reminded.

“This is different.”

“Yeah going to an internship that he’s curious about is _much_ worse than slinking off to infiltrate an enemy base alone with no backup,” Clint remarked.

Phil stopped his angry dressing for a moment to curl his hands around the back of one of the kitchen chairs and level Clint with a glare so intense that his partner was actually concerned for a minute. “This is different, alright? He’s not you. He’s… he’s him.”

“Eloquent,” Clint snarked.

“Would you please just take this seriously? I told him not to do this, you know that I have valid reason for not wanting him to do this and he did it anyway. He can’t take care of himself the way that you could Clint. There are shifty things going on in OSCORP and if he gets himself in a bad situation he won’t be able to get himself out again.” 

“Maybe he’d be able to get himself out of them if we’d done something to train him for it,” Clint muttered.

Phil made a strangled noise that was somewhere between a growl and an irritated yell. “Clint, we are _not_ going over that again right now. We agreed to keep him out of what our lives used to be and it is going to stay that way. He is going to have a normal childhood, get a normal internship, go to a normal college, get a normal job, and live a normal life.”

Clint raised his eyebrow challengingly. “Well if OSCORP is as suspicious as you think it is, he might get himself into our old lives all on his own and then where will he be? There’s nothing wrong with teaching him a little self defense. We could at least pass it off as a way to keep him from getting hit by bullies all the time.”

“You’re trying to distract me from going to get him,” Phil accused.

“Yes, and I can’t believe it’s working. Just let him go, Phil. He needs to have a little rebellion even if his rebellion happens to be in the best interest of his future and not at all as bad as it could be. He could be sneaking out to do drugs or whatever the kids do these days, you know.”

“Clint,” Phil ground out, “you… I already explained all of this to you.”

“So he thinks he has some kind of hero complex to help me, so what? I had some kind of hero complex to help people, so did you last time I checked. We choose to live our lives based on doing things for people that we like. It’s a Coulson thing.” 

“He’s adopted.”

“Yes, I’m aware. I did sign the papers too, you know,” Clint said with a smile. He circled around the kitchen and tucked himself against Phil’s chest with his arms around his waist and waited until he felt Phil’s arms around his shoulders. “Just let him do something rebellious for once. It’s not like he’s ever done anything rebellious before. Picture perfect kid, you know? There’s no harm in it. He’ll see that it’s all futile and he’ll give up quietly and go on with other things. It’s not going to be the end of the world.”

Phil grumbled meaninglessly into Clint’s hair. “When did you become the mature one?” he complained.

Clint huffed a laugh. “When you decided to play good cop bad cop and somehow I got stuck on the good cop end.” He tucked his nose into Phil’s collarbone. “You can grill him when he gets back and then I’ll give him cookies and tell him that it’s all alright and Daddy’s going to take care of him while Pop’s being a jerk.”

Phil laughed, anger ebbing away. He kissed the top of Clint’s head gently. “You know,” he mentioned after a moment. “Ten years ago we would be heading towards the bedroom right now.”

That brought Clint’s head up, a suspicious look on his face. “Is that what constitutes a pick up line for you now? You could at least buy me a drink first.”

“The kid’s out for a while, just you and me.” Phil smirked down at Clint and kissed him softly on the lips. “Bedroom’s that way you know.”

Clint rolled his eyes and pulled out of Phil’s arms. “If you want this now you’re going to have to come get it,” he said over his shoulder as he made his way to the bedroom, purposefully sashaying his hips ridiculously. Phil could only laugh and follow him. 


	4. Chapter 4

Peter stumbled off the subway at his stop, trying hard not to look back at the destruction that he’d caused. The once-drunk people inside had sobered up considerably after he had started accidentally knocking them around. Well, the ones that were still conscious were sober. He held his broken board under his arm and ran the whole way home, trying not to think about the random flashes of blue that had sparked every single movement that he would have found awesome if he had been in control of them. 

The lights were still on when he opened the front door to the house and he knew that he was going to be in some deep shit. Neither of his parents had texted him past the first two that he’d received going into OSCORP and he could only hope that his dad had talked his pop out of most of his anger. “Hey, I’m sorry I’m late,” he said when he walked in the door, trying to talk loudly enough that neither of his parents would find something to say.

Pop was at the table, looking blankly at him. But not the kind of blank that meant he wasn’t thinking, the kind of blank that meant he was carefully considering every single option for punishment. Dad was standing, leaning against the counter. “Took you long enough to get back,” Dad said and Peter abandoned all hope of getting out of this situation alive.

“I’m sorry,” he tried, stepping closer to his dad in hopes that he could manage to get out of being stared down by his pop. The blue spark snapped up his vision and a split second later he realized that there was a fly between his fingers, just in front of his dad’s nose. 

“Peter…” his dad murmured. “That’s a fly.”

“Yeah,” he answered. He let it go and waved at it blindly to try to get it to leave. Both his parents were watching him suspiciously. He rubbed at his face and tried not to look at either of them.

“Peter,” his pop started.

“Yeah I know I’m sorry. I’m a horrible, insensitive person. I am so hungry.” He pushed further into the house, dropping his broken skateboard into his dad’s arms and going for the fridge. He didn’t even notice both of his parents watching him from a safe distance, frowning while he went through everything in the fridge. They didn’t even say anything when he took his spoils and eased around them towards the stairs. 

He was at the top of the staircase when he heard his dad say, “Phil, I think maybe we should call Tony…”

“Not yet, we don’t know anything yet.”

Peter escaped to his room.

———

As soon as Peter was gone, Clint went for the phone. “Phil, this a serious problem. Something happened to him. Did you see him grab that fly? That was not normal.”

“Yes I saw but it’s late, Clint. We don’t need to get anyone involved until we know more,” Phil said with a sigh. He pulled Clint’s hands away from the landline and held them between them. “We just need to keep an eye on him, make sure that whatever’s happened isn’t going to hurt him, and let him know that we’re here.”

“Thought you’d be more angry about this considering whatever happened is because of OSCORP,” Clint answered.

“Oh I’m angry,” Phil said.

“No you’re not. You’re just worried,” Clint replied. “But we’ll keep an eye on him. God I hope this isn’t going to be one of those stupid ass science-gone-wrong situations.” He sank into the kitchen chair and ran his hands through his hair. Phil stood behind him and rubbed his shoulders comfortingly. “Remember last time someone had a science problem that we dealt with?”

“Yeah I believe that would be the time that you got your torso ripped open, I think I remember,” Phil answered. He leaned down to kiss the top of Clint’s head and run his hands over his partner’s chest.

“We should have sex when you’re angry more often. It really mellows you out.” 

“Come on,” Phil said. “It’s late and old people like us need to sleep.”

“Why do you have to say ‘old people like _us_ ’?” Clint whined. He popped his back when he stood and Phil just gave him a knowing look. Clint laughed, “Yeah I guess I’m getting towards the old person stage.”

“Oh honey you’ve been there for a while,” Phil answered, kissing the laugh lines around his eyes. “Doesn’t mean I love you any less.”

“I should hope not. If I stopped loving you when you reached the old person stage I only would have liked you for what, a year maybe?” 

“I’m not that old, you ass.”

———

Clint and Phil woke up early like always, Peter liked to sleep in but there was just something about living your entire life on the edge expecting an attack that got people out of bed at first light. Clint was making breakfast and Phil was having his second cup of coffee for the day - having long ago grown too accustomed to coffee for just one cup to do the trick - when they heard the banging coming from upstairs.

“Does that sound like it’s coming from Peter’s bathroom to you?” Clint asked. Phil nodded and they both paused what they were doing to listen to the banging that stopped after a couple of seconds. “What is he doing up there?” 

“I don’t want to know,” Phil answered and went back to his coffee and newspaper.

———

Peter didn’t go down for breakfast. He couldn’t even think of what to do besides look up spider bites on the internet. Not his best means of research but it was what he had at his disposal without having to pass by his parents downstairs. He knew they would be up and about already, they always were. Sometimes he felt like his parent didn’t even sleep. And then his damn keyboard keys came away on his fingers. 

His only choice to continue to stay away from his parents was to escape to the roof to do “homework.” He could hear his parents in the kitchen below and it was more than a bit disconcerting to be able to hear them just chatting with each other about little things that meant nothing like the expiration date on the milk or the girl at Pop’s office who was pregnant. They just seemed… so normal and he knew that he should be glad that he’d been adopted by such great people but he was having one of those moments when he wished that he could sit down and tell them about all of this science and have them understand it. 

His pop walked out of the house after a little while to go get the mail and looked up when he was coming back, probably following the swinging line of Peter’s leg. “What are you doing up there?”

“Uh… homework,” Peter answered, flipping closed the book that Dr. Connors and his old partner Dr. Parker had written. 

Pop looked unconvinced but went back to the mail anyway. “Don’t fall,” he said helpfully.

“I’ll try not to.”

He tried not to listen in but he could hear his parents anyway in the kitchen.

“He’s sitting on the roof like you used to,” Pop said.

“The roof’s a good place to think,” Dad answered.

“Not when he could fall off and kill himself.”

“I never fell.”

“You had extra protection. I don’t think he has a grappling arrow handy.”

“No one needs a grappling arrow for a one story fall. The most he would do is bruise himself.”

“You broke your arm falling from one story before.”

“I was unconscious.”

“You still fell.”

Peter returned to his room quickly. 

On impulse, after he put the keys back on his keyboard correctly, he looked deeper into the life of Dr. Connors’s old friend Dr. Parker. He knew a lot about Dr. Connors’s life but Dr. Parker was more of a mystery even though the whole of the research had originated with him. 

“Dr. Richard Parker and his wife died in a tragic car accident, leaving behind their two year old son, Peter Parker…” Peter murmured while he read. “Peter Parker was put up for adoption after the death of his only living relatives who had been caring for him at the time.”

More digging brought up the agency through which Peter Parker had been adopted. Peter froze when he recognized the name. “That’s…” He pushed himself away from the desk and went rifling through the drawers. He had a copy of the adoption paperwork that he had copied for himself after he found it in his pop’s desk. There couldn’t be any harm in having more than one copy. He pulled it out and, for once, look at the last name that was on the paperwork before he had been dubbed Peter Coulson.

“Peter Parker,” he read. He looked up at the picture of his parents… his parents… and back down at his own mugshot. He was four when he had been adopted by Clint and Phil Coulson and he remembered some of the group home that he’d been in. He remembered seeing his dad for the first time, although the image he had was fuzzy and he couldn’t remember precisely what young Clint Coulson had looked like.

He tossed the paperwork back in the drawer and leaned back in his chair, trying to take deep breaths and failing completely. He could still hear his parents murmuring downstairs and he tried to block it out. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. He grabbed cellphone and wallet and left from the second story window. He didn’t even think before he jumped down and made for the Dr. Connors’s home. He didn’t see his parents watching him from the kitchen window with worried expressions.


	5. Chapter 5

Phil and Clint watched Peter run down the street away from their home from the kitchen window. Clint had his arms crossed tightly the way that he did when he was nervous and unhappy and Phil rubbed his hands over Clint’s shoulders and back. “I think we should call in some favors now,” Phil suggested quietly.

“Yeah I think so,” Clint agreed. “Tony?”

“Might as well pull out the big guns from the start,” Phil answered. “He’ll know what’s going on in OSCORP. If anything bad has happened to Peter I want to know now.”

“He took the adoption papers out of his dresser. It ticked the sensor you put in there and I know you’ve been keeping a check on his internet history.” Clint finally turned away from the window and tucked himself into his partner’s arms. “He’s going to be so pissed when he finally sees how much surveillance we have on him.”

“And yet he still managed to go and get himself into trouble.”

“Might not be trouble, we don’t know yet.”

“He’s your child, he’s gotten himself into trouble.” Phil smoothed Clint’s hair back from his forehead and kissed the lines of worry he found. “Even if it’s not biological, any child going through their formative years with you would turn into a trouble magnet.”

———

Peter arrived at Dr. Connors’s home - an address he may have looked up at one point when thinking about trying to get Dr. Connors’s attention and one that he had a bit shamefully remembered. He tried not to breathe too hard when he finally rang the doorbell and stood nervously waiting for someone to answer the door. 

“Uh,” he started when the door opened and Dr. Connors was standing there looking at him with some measure of confusion. “You probably don’t remember me I’m-”

“The intern from the other day,” Dr. Connors finished with some recognition on his face. The small smile fell away swiftly though. “I’m sure you’re a very nice young man but this is a home and I’m going to have to ask you to make an appointment with my office.”

Peter had rehearsed his hook to get Dr. Connors’s attention on the way over, repeating it until it became natural to say that he was the son of a Richard Parker, not Clint and Phil Coulson. “I’m Richard Parker’s son,” he said smoothly as the door was about to shut in his face. 

Dr. Connors stopped the door and looked at him for a long, tense moment before saying, quietly, “Peter?” He stepped back and held the door open more, “Come in, please.” Peter followed Dr. Connors into his very nice, clean, spacious house that seemed entirely different from the little town house where Peter and his parents lived. “Coffee?” Dr. Connors offered.

“Yeah sure.”

When Dr. Connors was turned around to start the little high tech coffee maker and pull out two mugs, Peter looked around the areas that he could see. There wasn’t much indication of personality besides general neatness and organization. There were a few notebooks lying open on the table but they were mostly blank - like Dr. Connors had been staring at them and just waiting for an idea to come to him.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you much, Peter. I don’t know why they left or where they were going,” Dr. Connors began and Peter had to take a moment to realize that he was talking about Peter’s biological parents. 

Before Peter even realized that the mug was slipping off the counter, his hand was already out to catch it and the little spark of blue took over his vision. He took a deep breath when he realized what he had done and tried act as naturally as he could.

“Good reflexes,” Dr. Connors remarked.

“Thanks,” he said and tried to hide his nervousness by taking a sip from his newly rescued mug. He handed the other over to Dr. Connors. “I read your book.”

“Oh yes?”

“Yeah. It was… really something,” Peter said. “So you really think it’s possible - cross species genetics?”

“Well yes but for years your father and I were mocked for our theories not just in the community at large but in OSCORP as well. They called us mad scientists. And then your father bred the spiders and everything changed the results were beyond encouraging. They were spectacular.”

Peter found it a bit strange for Dr. Connors referring to Richard Parker at his father even though he assumed it would be natural for a man who was friends with his biological father but still… when Peter thought of his father he thought of his pop, sometimes his dad but “father” was a term that was nearly as stern as his pop.

“We were going to change the lives of millions. Including my own. But then it was over. He… he was… gone,” Dr. Connors said with a catch in his voice. “Took his research with him. And I knew without him I…” Dr. Connors paused and Peter refrained from interrupting him. “I was angry… So I stayed away from you and your family and for that I am truly sorry.”

Peter wasn’t sure that he would have entirely wanted Dr. Connors as a presence in his life - or that his parents would have even allowed it if Dr. Connors had tried to be. But he couldn’t help but admit to himself that there was some allure in imagining someone being there to help him with his science homework, listen to his mad theories and tell him where they were wrong, where he was onto something, or to just have someone who understood the kinds of things that took up most of his waking thoughts.

“Say… say it worked. Say you got it to work. Like how much would the foreign species take over? What could the side effects be?” 

“It’s hard to say considering no subject survived. The problem was always the -”

“Decay Rate algorithm?” Peter interrupted. Pop would be pissed if he knew he’d interrupted someone. 

“Right.”

“Right. Can I… uh?” he asked, motioning to the stack of papers and pencil. He scribbled down the formula that had been in the book and made the necessary changes to it as quickly as he could, very aware that Dr. Connors was watching him curiously. When he was finished he turned it around and sat there nervously while Dr. Connors looked it over.

“Extraordinary. How did you come up with this?” 

Peter shrugged bashfully and tapped the end of the pencil against his temple.

“Peter, how would you feel about coming to see me at the tower one day after school?”

He tried to contain his nervous excitement. “Yeah.”

That was not a feeling but he figured Dr. Connors knew what he meant.

———

Phil put the phone on speaker after he dialed Tony’s personal cellphone number - which he’d only gotten by calling into SHIELD and asking Fury himself what Stark had changed it to this time.

“Hello?” that was definitely not Stark’s voice.

“Can I speak with Tony, please?” Phil asked politely.

“Yeah, who’s this?” the voice asked.

“Phil Coulson.”

“STARK, PHIL COULSON’S ON THE PHONE FOR YOU.”

“I’m right next to you, Hank, I can hear you,” Stark’s muffled voice said. There was some rustling with the changing of hands before Tony’s smooth voice came on. “Hello there, Agent Not-Agent. What do you want from me this time? I’m starting to think you only want me for favors.”

“I need to know what you know abut OSCORP,” Phil said bluntly.

“I assume you’ve already seen SHIELD’s file on OSCORP and I admire their dedication to never having enough information,” Tony answered.

“Tony…”

“Right, let me just pull that up now. You know if you were using one of the new StarkPhones that I offered to send you I could be just shooting all of this straight to your phone right now.”

“Tony.”

“OSCORP founded in -”

“Skip to the part about Dr. Connors,” Clint said.

“Oh hey there, old man. How’s the hip?” Tony teased.

“Dr. Connors… Tony.”

“Dr. Connors and his old golf buddy Dr. Richard Parker who happens to be the biological father of your rugrat worked together on researching genetic mutations that could be implanted into a different species from the host in order to target certain illnesses and physical maladies. Dr. Connors lost his arm as a soldier before all this happened so I’m assuming that he was probably the inspiration for this whole disaster. Their research was largely theoretical until Dr. Parker bred a new kind of spider whose genetics melded seamlessly with several test mice and gave them rather impressive reaction times and also stick paws to climb all over stuff. Dr. Parker vanished shortly afterward with all of his research and his son was eventually adopted by, oh look, there’s you.”

“Very nice. We already knew all of that.”

“Dr. Connors has known about your family and Peter’s location for his entire life,” Tony offered.

“Knew that also. If he had tried to make contact without our permission we would have taken care of it,” Phil answered.

“You make him sound like an alien. In any case, Dr. Connors is a brilliant man but the general consensus of the scientific community is that he’s wasted on genetic research and even if he manages to find some kind of miracle cure for polio or whatever it is that he thinks he can cure with lizard scales there is no way he’s going to cure all the world’s ills like he claims he’ll be able to.”

“So he’s basically a mad scientist,” Clint suggested.

“Not exactly mad but he certainly is thought to be a bit misguided and very… enthusiastic about some less than sane research. Yeah he’s a mad scientist in the making.”

“What would happen… if someone was bitten by one of these spiders, do you think?” Phil asked carefully.

“No idea. Genetics aren’t my thing. _But_ I will get Brucie on that and get back to you.”

“They’re not Bruce’s thing either,” Clint muttered.

“No but they are about to be because that’s the power of working with smart people. We do all the thinking for you.”

“Whatever. Thanks, Tony,” Clint said. 

“I’ll call you later, Bird Brain.”

“You do that.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> really struggled with writing this soooo it kind of sucks but here you go

Phil and Clint didn’t try to stop Peter when he got home from wherever he had run off to. He scurried up the stairs to his room with only a cursory hello to his parents and slammed his door shut. Phil’s mouth was fixed in a tight line and he could see the tension lining Clint’s muscles. He rubbed his hand soothingly over his partner’s back even though he didn’t have much reassurance to give. “Maybe he’ll tell us something eventually,” Phil offered as best he could.

Clint snorted. “I doubt it. He’d rather deal with things on his own than ask for help. Let’s think about who his parents are for a minute.”

Phil knew that Clint meant to think about the two of them. They were his parents after all; they had all the paper work to back it up. But for a moment all he could imagine were the man and woman who had given birth to Peter and raised him for the first few years of his life — the ones who had heard his first words and changed his diapers and taught him to walk. 

“Phil? What’s wrong?” Clint asked.

“Maybe we should be thinking about his parents,” Phil answered.

“I don’t follow.”

“Peter’s parents. His father was a brilliant scientist. He worked with Connors, he bred spiders that could possibly have something to do with the way that Peter’s been acting. Maybe… we should have someone look into Dr. Parker and his wife also.”

“We’re Peter’s parents,” Clint said with a hint of petulance. 

“Peter’s birth parents,” Phil corrected after a moment. Clint seemed to find this slightly more acceptable, but there was a tightness to his body that he showed whenever someone mentioned that Clint and Phil weren’t Peter’s “real” parents. 

“I’ll call Natasha in the morning and see if she can get any information from SHIELD on them,” Clint conceded, “if that’s really what you think is for the best.”

“Do you think we shouldn’t?” Phil asked.

“I think that…” Clint trailed off before huffing a tired sigh and letting himself fall into one of the kitchen chairs. “I don’t know, Phil. What are we even doing? Something’s obviously wrong with Peter; he’s gone and gotten himself into some kind of trouble with Dr. Connors, and we’ve been trying for ages to keep him out of anything like our old lives.”

Phil leaned his hip against the kitchen table and ran a hand through Clint’s hair. “We’ll think of something. And if we have to sit Peter down and demand that he tell us what’s going on then we will.”

Clint snorted. “Yeah I’m sure he’ll just love that.”

“But it could keep him safe from whatever he’s getting into."

“Yeah…” Clint grabbed Phil’s hand that was in his hair and twined their fingers together messily. “This is why you’re the better parent. If I had my way we’d just let him do whatever he wanted all the time.” 

“That’s why you’re the fun parent that he always wants around, and I’m the mean parent that makes him do stuff that’s actually constructive,” Phil teased. He brought their hands to his lips and kissed Clint’s fingertips. “Everything will turn out alright. It always does.” He pulled Clint lightly from the chair and tugged him to his chest so Clint could snuggle up against him with a happy noise. “We need to at least stop worrying for now while there’s nothing we can do. Something new will come up and we’ll plan another course of action. But for now we need to go to bed.”

“Yeah I’m about to fall asleep standing up.”

“There was a time,” Phil began with a teasing smile.

“When I didn’t need as much sleep as I do now,” Clint ended. He tipped his chin up to press a light kiss to Phil’s lips. “Let’s go to bed.”

— — —

Mornings were never quiet in the Coulson household. Clint almost always made the most noise between humming whatever song had popped into his head upon waking and generally banging every pan in the kitchen. He tried to be quiet while Phil read the morning news on his laptop, but as soon as Phil closed the lid and accepted a plate of whatever breakfast monstrosity Clint had made, the former archer went right about making as much noise as he wanted. Eventually Peter would stumble down the stairs and scarf down as much breakfast as he could in whatever time he had left over from rolling out of bed and trying to make himself look like a human. He would bumble into the railing of the stairs, into the kitchen table and chairs, and into the doorway between the kitchen and the hallway. Phil and Clint were used to the noise that he made. It always added another piece to their morning chorus of chaos that three people — really more like two since Phil rarely made more noise than sipping his coffee — shouldn’t have been able to make on their own. 

When Peter appeared in the kitchen earlier than he had ever made it, without running into anything to tell his parents that he was awake, both Clint and Phil were shocked. Peter sank into his chair, looking tired, but not flustered or half asleep. Clint took a bit longer than usual to set his plate down in front of him, and was frowning fiercely when Phil glanced at his face. Phil tried not to let his son see that he was worried about how he was Peter _not_ putting bruises on his hips from hitting the very end of the staircase railing like he did every other morning. 

“Good morning,” Peter said around a mouthful of oatmeal.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Clint said without any bite. He went right back to making his own plate over the stove but his movements were slow and stiff.

“You’re down earlier than usual,” Phil noted.

“Just didn’t feel the need to sleep in,” Peter said with a shrug. “Hey, Dad, is there any orange juice in the fridge?” 

“Are your legs broken?” Clint asked without his usual teasing tone.

Peter sighed and stood up from the table and went to check himself. He poured himself a glass of juice and sat back down to drink half of it in one go. 

There was a moment of awkwardness filled only by Clint moving around pans and silverware before he sat down at the table beside Phil. “I got a text from Angie earlier, so I’m going to go to the soup kitchen later on.”

“I’ll pick you up after work,” Phil said.

“I don’t need you to do that, sweetie,” Clint answered with a strained tone. “I’m more than capable of walking back from the kitchen on my own.”

“You never feel well after standing up and behind over and doing everything that you do over there after a few hours. I’ll come pick you up, it’s no big deal,” Phil answered.

Peter was looking between his parents. “I thought Pop just picked you up because you didn’t like having to walk home after standing for so long,” he said.

“I can walk just fine. I’m more than in shape enough to deal with walking a couple of blocks after a few hours of standing,” Clint answered tersely. 

“It’s ten blocks,” Phil replied. He had his laptop flipped open again which was a sure sign that he didn’t want to hear any kind of argument from Clint. “I’ll pick you up like I always do.”

Clint muttered dark, unhappy things under his breath as he dug into his meal and Peter was making a kind of twisting, concerned expression at his parents. “If it hurts you, you shouldn’t do it, Dad,” Peter said after a moment of obviously considering the wisdom of perpetuating the conversation.

“It doesn’t hurt that bad. Besides, I like working at the kitchen.”

“It must hurt enough if Pop has to come and get you.”

“Your Pop,” Peter flinched at that. Phil was only “your Pop” when Clint was starting to get pissed, “insists that he pick me up. I’ve walked plenty of times by myself.”

“You shouldn’t hurt yourself,” Peter began.

“Drop it, Peter,” Clint snapped. He ate a forkful of eggs with a particularly vicious expression. Peter immediately looked down at his food and began poking it around before excusing himself from the table and escaping to his room. As soon as he was gone, Clint leaned back in his chair and ran his hands over his face. “I didn’t mean to do that,”  he muttered.

Phil patted his arm. “It’s okay for you to admit that you hurt sometimes, babe. We aren’t going to tell you that you’re weak because of it.”

“Well I wish that you wouldn’t be so patronizing. You could at least ask me if I want you to come pick me up and then conveniently forget when I say no and just show up so I can get in your car without feeling like I’m being picked up from day care at the end of the day,” Clint muttered.

“That’s certainly an interesting way to ask for things,” Phil answered. He ran his hand from Clint’s wrist to shoulder and back down and back up over and over again. “How about this then, Clint, do you want me to pick you up from the soup kitchen later?”

“No, I do not,” Clint answered with a small smile. 

“Alright then. I will see you later,” Phil answered. He leaned over gave Clint a quick peck on the lips before standing and gathering his briefcase and suit jacket. “I love you, babe,” he said before he left the kitchen and vanished out the front door.

“I love you too.”


	7. Chapter 7

Working as an accountant was by far the least interesting thing Phil had ever done in his life. It was like having to do the boring part of SHIELD work for the rest of his life without any of the action and missions to go along with it. No, it was even worse than that. At least SHIELD paperwork could be interesting. Even if he wasn’t part of a mission he could still read about it later. There was nothing interesting about trying to filter through three years of someone crazy lady’s receipts that consisted largely of cat food and litter. 

He’d only been at work for a few hours when his cellphone rang, which was altogether unusual since the only people that called him were Clint and Peter, and Peter was supposed to be in class and Clint was no doubt busy putting together soup with whatever was cheapest at the grocery store. He glanced at the number on the caller ID long enough to sigh heavily and answer with no small amount of trepidation.

“Phil Coulson,” he said.

“Mr. Coulson, this is Miss Erika from Midtown. There’s been a small issue with your son Peter and we’re going to need you to come pick him up and sit in on a meeting with the principal.”

Phil tried very, very hard not to huff out a long-suffering sigh but it hissed through his teeth anyway. “What exactly happened so I can be prepared for when I get there?” 

“Apparently there was some kind of argument between Peter and another student that resulted in a broken basketball goal. The principal will be more than happy to go over the details of the situation with you when you arrive.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” he said. He barely waited for the receptionist to confirm and say goodbye before he was ending the call and grabbing his suit jacket from the back of his chair. He popped into the his boss’s office to tell him that he had to leave but would be back later to make up for the time that he would be losing dealing with whatever mess Peter had gotten himself into this time. Clint didn’t answer his phone when Phil tried to call him while driving to the school, but he managed to send a quick text when he pulled into the school parking lot explaining that he would send Peter to pick him up from the kitchen due to a change in work hours.

Peter was already in the principal’s office when Phil walked in, slouched morosely in his chair and trying to appear simultaneously sorry and nonchalant. Peter looked momentarily hopeful when the door opened and Phil knew that his son had been wishing with all his power that Clint would be the one called to come and deal with him. Phil shook the principal’s hand before sitting down beside his son. Peter winced and tried to shift over to the edge of his seat farthest away from his father.

“Mr. Coulson, I’m sorry that you had to come down here in the middle of your work day,” the principal said with the kind of false understanding that made Phil’s teeth clench. 

“It’s fine,” he answered shortly. “I just want to know what happened so I can get back to work.”

“Peter, why don’t you tell your father your side of the story,” the principal said sweetly.

Peter looked like he might grumble his way through the story but Phil pinned him with a sharp look and Peter sat up in his seat and faced his father properly. “The guys on the basketball team were playing around in the gym and one of the girls from the art class was making a banner so she had paint and stuff around and one of the guys hit the basketball into her paint and got it all over the place. He tried to do it again, I caught the ball, and we kind of had a face off, y’know?” Phil gave him a look that made it quiet clear that no, he did not know whatever it was that Peter was trying to tell him. Peter shifted uncomfortably at the look and continued,

“We were just kind of playing one on one a bit and I figured I could dunk the ball but when I did I kind of smashed the backboard somehow.”

“You smashed the backboard,” Phil repeated blandly.

“Yeah…” Peter slouched in his seat again.

The principal leaned forward on his desk with his hands clasped in front of him. “Mr. Coulson, according to the account of the other boy in this disagreement, Peter was purposefully mocking him in front of their peers and causing a scene to humiliate him. We do not tolerate students humiliating their classmates here.”

Phil let his mouth tighten into a straight line, recalling all the times that his own son had been pushed around and beaten on by other students without a single hour of detention given to the bullies. Captain America would not have stood for it but Phil was even less influential than he had been as Fury’s shadow right hand. “Well I’m sure he’s very,” he looked pointedly at his son, “very sorry for what he did. It seems to me that he was just standing up for another student and got a bit carried away. Isn’t that right, Peter?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly what happened,” Peter answered. 

“Mr. Coulson, your son has a history of disobeying teachers and causing general trouble in this school,” the principal began.

“Sir, if you are about to say that my son deserves to be expelled or suspended from school, I’m afraid I’m going to have to take this situation up with the Board,” Phil said blandly. “And I don’t think that they will be on your side after I’ve had my word. I was thinking something less dangerous on his permanent record. Community service would be for the best. He would learn to give back to his community rather than upsetting it, and I would like for you to consider giving community service to the other boy in this disagreement as well for picking on the art student.”

“Mr. Coulson, I am the one who makes the decisions about punishment in this school,” the principal sputtered slightly.

“Community service or the Board,” Phil said with fake nonchalance. 

The principal looked beyond irritated, but he leaned back in his chair and let himself relax. “Peter Coulson, you are required to do twenty five hours of community service for causing unnecessary fighting and humiliating another student. Mr. Coulson, thank you for coming down to pick Peter up. Obviously he will not be attending the rest of his classes today, and I am going to have to ask that you take him home for the remainder of the day. I’m really sorry that this has taken up so much of your work day.”

“It’s no problem,” Phil replied as he stood up and brushed imaginary dust off his pants and sleeves. “I’m sorry that Peter has gotten into yet another fight, and I know that you will consider giving similar punishment to the boy that was picking on the art student. It just wouldn’t be a fair system if you didn’t, don’t you think?”

The principal gave him a strained smile and shook his hand without a word. Peter slinked out of the office before his father and Phil watched him walking swiftly down the halls towards the front doors with his hands in his pockets. Phil stopped walking at a deserted cross between two hallways, one that led back to the principal’s office and one that led out to the parking lot.

“So was it the same boy that hit you?” Phil asked blandly.

Peter shifted nervously and looked anywhere but at him. “Yeah.”

“Do you feel like you’ve gotten your revenge for it?” he continued in the same neutral tone.

“It wasn’t for revenge. He was picking on someone else.”

“Oh he’s always picking on someone else when the two of you fight, but you’ve never tried to damage his ego before. I’m not that angry at you, Peter.”

“They’re not going to make us pay for the backboard.”

“I don’t care about the backboard, Peter. I care about the fact that you went out of your way to humiliate another person. It has never bothered me or Clint that you get into trouble when you’re standing up for someone else because you’ve never tried to get revenge, but I don’t think that was the case this time.” Peter still wasn’t looking at him. “Was it, Peter?” He was still looking off into the air over Phil’s shoulder. “Tell me the truth.”

“I might have maybe tried to get back at him, but he deserved it, Pop. He’s always picking on other people. He deserved to be taken down a couple of pegs.”

“That might be true but you need to know when it is the time and place to do that,” Phil answered. “And you shouldn’t have humiliated him in front of all those people and caused unnecessary mayhem _and_ broken school property.”

“Captain America would have done it.”

Phil let out a long, irritated huff and Peter looked down at the ground. “Captain America wouldn’t have broken the school backboard, and he would have spoken to him and his parents first. This isn’t a battlefield, Peter. It’s just high school.”

“It feels more like a battlefield,” Peter grumbled. “And how would you know? You haven’t been in high school since everyone wore uniforms and had chalkboards.”

“Very funny.” Phil didn’t rise to the bait. He looked down at his watch briefly. “Because of this whole issue I had to change hours that I’ll be working. You are going to go to the soup kitchen and walk back with your dad and make sure that he doesn’t hurt himself, do you understand?”

Peter nodded. “Yeah. Got it. Get Dad at seven.”

“Exactly.” Phil looked over Peter’s shoulder to see a blonde girl standing somewhat awkwardly behind her. He knew who she was of course, Gwen Stacey, intern for Dr. Connors, debate team, highest scores in all of her classes. And he knew that Peter had some kind of attraction towards her. He ran a hand through his hair, but didn’t say anything. She would be waiting to see if Peter had gotten into enough trouble to get thrown out of school. “I don’t have time to take you home so you had better get yourself there after you’re done talking to Miss Stacey.”

“Miss… what?” Peter turned around quickly and the girl behind him offered a little wave. “Oh. Pop…” he looked down at the ground. “I’m sorry.”

“Save it for later when you get to explain all of this to your dad,” Phil answered. “I will see you later. Seven o’clock, go walk your dad back. You can tell him about all of this then if you want to or you can wait until we’re both home. Go home directly after this,” he motioned between Peter and Gwen, “understood?”

“Understood,” Peter answered.

Phil could hear Peter’s awkward flirting as he walked down the hallway but he ignored it for the sake of his sanity.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Going off- movie for this chapter which is why it's so long. Also, trying something a bit different with bringing Natasha in for the first part.

Natasha was not a woman who liked to admit to wanting anything. She could be bound to a hospital bed after not eating for three days, and still not ask for a glass of water much less something to eat. She had done that once — or perhaps twice. Clint had always known when she wanted something. He had always been the one to show up at her bed in the hospital with a plate of food and a glass of water. He had been the one to take her to dumb action movies or surprise her with a custom made knife. After Clint, the others had watched her and had tried to pick up the slack. Steve had gotten fairly good at noticing when she looked at something for too long. Tony often just assumed she wanted things and got it right every once in a while.

Bucky had filled part of the hole that Clint had left behind. But Bucky was Bucky and couldn’t fill the Clint-shaped hole exactly. Clint would always be her first friend, the first person that she had trusted with her life. It had hurt when she saw him hurting, it had hurt enough that she had withdrawn to protect herself and had regretted it ever since.

She wanted her best friend back more than anything but had never known exactly how to go about getting what she wanted. Clint had been the one to tell her that it was alright to want things. Without him, she wasn’t sure. She knew that it hurt him to see her while the lines around his eyes grew deeper and he moved slower. It scared her to think that wanting him would hurt him — that maybe he wouldn’t want her. 

She kept an eye on them from afar. She knew that Clint went to neighborhood cookouts and packed Peter’s lunch every day. She knew that he forced Phil to go to the park with him and their child and push Peter on the swing set. She knew that he touched the scars spanning his side when he thought Phil wasn’t looking. She knew that he tried to keep his pain a secret from his son. She knew that he loved Peter more than anything else in the world. 

Knowing that Peter was important to Clint led to her keeping track of her best friend’s child. She couldn’t watch him all the time but she kept up with him, she knew when he walked into OSCORP, she knew when he went back out, she knew what he spoke about with Dr. Connors in the privacy of the scientist’s home, she knew why Peter wanted to work with him. She would follow him when she could, always watching from far enough away. Sometimes he would say things that sounded like Clint, or he would fidget in the same way that Clint had when he went too long without shooting. 

She followed Peter after he was sent home from school and he made his way to the abandoned warehouses downtown instead. She perched out of sight and watched for a long time, until she knew that she had the proof she was looking for in the moment that he clung to the sheer side of the wall with only his fingertips. She followed him into OSCORP, and sat in one of the employee’s chairs without a single person questioning her presence as the clock ticked past seven o’clock and he made no move to go walk Clint home from the soup kitchen. She watched Peter successfully solve the puzzle that had plagued hundreds of scientists, and the smile that lit up his face. She left before Peter did, and beat him home.

 

— — — 

 

 Knocking on Clint and Phil’s door felt like one of the most difficult things she had ever done. She briefly considered slipping in unannounced instead but contained herself. When the door swung open, Phil stood there with anger in his expression and his mouth already opened to snap at who he assumed would be his son. 

“Phil,” she said quietly.

“Natasha,” he answered, deflating immediately. “Come in, what are you doing here?”

She stepped past him, noting the difference in his posture, the deep wrinkles around his eyes, and the veins standing out in his hands. He closed the door behind her. “Peter,” she said blandly. She walked further into their house without offering anything else and Phil followed her silently.

Clint was sitting on the couch, his jaw clenched tightly and his hands pressed to his side. There was a bottle of pain killers on the end table, and a half empty glass of water. He looked over when she came in and she watched him try to hide his pain and stand up. She hurried to push him back down before he could get more than halfway out of his seat. “Don’t hurt yourself,” she chastised.

“Too late for that,” he huffed. He collapsed again and grimaced. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, Tasha, but what are you doing here?” 

“Peter went to OSCORP today at the request of Dr. Connors. He figured out a formula that has blocked Connors and his father from completing their attempts at cross species genetics and has given the formula to Dr. Connors and he was bitten by one of the spiders specially bred for crossing species. That is what has changed his reflexes and led to his unusual behavior.” 

Clint was looking up at her with wide eyes and a slightly open mouth. She watched as his eyes flicked over to Phil for a moment but she kept her gaze on him rather than checking to see Phil’s reaction. After a long moment, Clint let out a breathy laugh and tipped his head back on the couch, exposing his throat to her easily like he always had. “For the love of God, Tasha, warn a guy before you dump that kind of stuff on me.”

“I see no reason to withhold information when Peter is on his way here and you should be aware of the situation,” she answered. 

“At least sit down,” he said. She let herself sit comfortably beside him, settling into a less defensible posture. Phil came over to perch on the edge of the couch beside his husband and put his hands on Clint’s knees. “Phil, what are we going to do?” Clint asked in a small voice. She hated the sound of that voice and drew back slightly. Clint glanced over at her like he knew what had triggered the movement. 

“We’ll see if he tells us himself,” Phil answered while he rubbed his hands soothingly over Clint’s knee and thigh. “And if he doesn’t want to tell us then we might have to trick him into it, but either way, I’m tired of all of this secrecy.”

“Secrecy just from him because we have a few things that we could tell him,” Clint responded in a tired voice. He reached over with one hand and Natasha jumped when her fingers were suddenly trapped in his; she felt like she had never been away as Clint tried to draw some strength from her being there. She pressed her lips together to keep from biting at them and ran her thumb over the back of her friend’s hand. 

Phil glanced at their hands and sighed heavily. “That depends on what he wants to do with this. There are enough mutants and superheroes in this city already that he might want to join them. If he does… it would probably be for the best that we get into contact with people who can help him,”

“You could help him,” Natasha said quietly.

Clint snorted. “We’re retired.”

“No one’s ever really retired,” she said primly.

“They are when they’re missing half their internal organs,” he replied cheerfully. She squeezed his hand tight enough to hurt and he winced, but didn’t pull away. 

“You’re not missing half your internal organs,” Phil murmured. He stood but leaned forward so he could run a hand through Clint’s hair and press a kiss to his forehead. “We’ll figure it out.”

“No plan, sir?” Clint questioned with a smile. 

Phil ran a hand over the damage hidden by Clint’s shirt and, to his credit, Clint didn’t flinch or show any pain beyond what was tightening his jaw and his spine. “We don’t always need a plan.”

Natasha raised her eyebrows and Phil gave her a slightly challenging expression. She shrugged her shoulders and didn’t say anything. A movement on the front porch had her rising from her seat. “I shouldn’t be here while you are having this conversation with your son,” she said. She leaned down and pressed a kiss to Clint’s forehead. “Call me if you need me.”

“I always need you, Tasha,” Clint said with the same genuine frankness that he always had with her. 

She drew back and tried not to let her emotions show on her face. She thought that perhaps she was only mostly successful. Phil was watching her when she straightened completely and tried to pull out the new wrinkles in her clothes. “Call me,” she repeated.

“Thank you, Tasha,” Phil said.

She nodded and let herself out through the back door just as the front door opened and Peter walked inside.

 

— — — 

 

Peter knew he was going to get it when both of his parents were in the living room together, watching him as he came through the door. He shut the door slowly and quietly behind himself and was caught between facing his parents and trying to make a break for his room when his pop called him into the living room.

“Peter, come in here.”

He dropped his backpack in the hallway where it wouldn’t get in anyone’s way and shuffled into his parents’s presence. Dad was sitting on the couch with his jaw clenched. “Am I in trouble?” he asked.

“You want to explain to me why you didn’t help your dad back from the soup kitchen at seven o’clock like I told you to?” Phil asked in an even voice.

Peter’s heart dropped and he looked back at his dad. “I forgot. I was… distracted.”

“Oh you were distracted. Then it’s completely fine that your dad, my husband, had to walk seven blocks on his own at night and then collapse when he got back here until I finally came home and could take care of him. That’s completely fine,” Phil said with the same bland monotone.

“Pop, I didn’t mean to…” he trailed off.

“I’m not mad at you, Peter,” Clint said.

“I’m sorry,” he said anyway, looking at the ground. “I just lost track of time.”

“Lost track of time where?” Phil asked.

“I was… just hanging out since I couldn’t go back to school.”

Clint sat up sharply and a sharp, gasping breath escaped him when he pulled his muscles too fast. He batted away Phil’s reaching hands. “Why couldn’t you go back to school?”

“I got asked to leave after I broke the basketball backboard,” Peter admitted.

“What?” Clint glared up at Phil. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“There are other, more important things to think about,” Phil said. “And I told Peter that he could be the one to tell you instead. I told you that I had to switch around hours at work.”

“Well you could have at least let me know that you had to go to the school because Peter’s breaking school property. Why did you even do that, Peter?”

“I didn’t mean to. I was kind of… having a face off with that bully kid who never leaves people alone and the backboard was just a casualty. They’re not going to make us pay for it and Pop made sure I just got community service so it’s not that bad,” Peter muttered.

Clint leaned back on the couch again and took a deep breath. “Fine.”

“Where were you, Peter?” Phil asked. He sat down on the couch beside his husband and laid a hand on Clint’s knee. “I want you to tell us the truth.”

Peter fidgeted and glanced towards the stairs that led to the relative safety of his bedroom. “I was… with a girl.” Clint snorted. “I was. Her name is Gwen. She’s in my class.”

“You were talking to her when I left the school and I doubt she skipped classes,” Phil said. “Peter… we know that there’s something going on and we just want to know so that we can help you. We’re not going to be mad.”

“Like hell you aren’t,” Peter muttered darkly.

“Peter,” Clint said. His son looked up at him. “We’re serious. If you’re in trouble, we want to know so that we can help you get out of it.”

“I’m not in trouble,” Peter answered.

Clint and Phil looked at each other and had some kind of conversation with their eyes that Peter couldn’t follow. He twisted his fingers together and tried not to look guilty.

“Peter, if you don’t tell us where you were, we’re going to actually get upset,” Phil said after a moment. Peter’s mouth tightened into a thin line because that’s exactly what he was expecting. “Not because of where you might have been, but because you don’t trust us enough to tell us.”

“You said it like that to make me feel guilty,” Peter accused.

“You already look pretty guilty on your own,” Clint answered. He raised his eyebrows and sat forward in his seat. Phil’s hand moved to his back like he was going to support him even while he was sitting down relatively comfortably. “Tell us, Peter. I swear I won’t let your pop get mad at you.”

Peter let out a harsh, fake chuckle because he knew that was what his dad wanted. “I was…” he trailed off. “Promise you won’t get mad?” he asked meekly, looking at Phil.

“I promise,” Phil said seriously.

“I was at OSCORP,” Peter said almost too quietly for them to hear. “I figured out the formula that they need for research and showed it to Dr. Connors. The virtual trials were successful.” He looked up with watery eyes at his parents. “It’s going to fix everything, Dad. They could fix you now… they could fix you soon.”

Clint was looking down at his hands and resolutely not letting his son see his face. Phil rubbed his hand up and down his husband’s back. “Peter… we understand why you want to help OSCORP but we… we’re really worried about Dr. Connors and we did ask you multiple times not to get wrapped up in this.”

“I’m an adult, Pop, you need to let me make my own choices,” Peter tried to say firmly but he was still too busy trying to see his dad’s reaction. 

Phil took a deep breath and was pretty obviously trying to contain some measure of anger. “Anything else you want to tell us, Peter? Anything that might have to do with you going to OSCORP in the first place?”

Peter’s got really large and for a moment he looked frantic. “I… what?”

“Is there something that you need to tell us… about something that might have happened the first time you went to OSCORP?” Phil asked again.

“You’re not subtle at all,” Clint muttered. Phil pushed at his shoulder slightly.

“What are you saying?” Peter asked.

Clint sighed and looked up at his son. Peter could see that his dad’s eyes were red rimmed in the way that eyes get when someone is trying very hard not to cry. “We know that you were bitten by one of the genetic spiders or whatever shit OSCORP is up to and we’re worried, Peter.”

“How did you even know about that?” Peter asked tightly. He took a step back like he was going to run away and Phil stood up carefully,.

“Peter, don’t be scared, alright? We’re not mad at you, I promise. We…” he glanced at Clint and they had their moment of nonverbal communication again, “we know people who can help you if you want to… use whatever has changed genetically about you in a constructive way.”

“You mean crime fighting. Like an Avenger or something,” Peter stated. 

“We just want to know what you were planning to do with it so that we can help you with what you want to do like we always have.”

“Except for when you didn’t want me to go to OSCORP,” Peter couldn’t help but snap at his pop.

Phil sighed heavily and ran a hand through his thin hair. “That’s not the point right now. What were you planning on doing with these differences that you have now?”

“Hadn’t thought about it,” Peter answered shortly.

“Please think about it,” Clint said quietly. Peter bit at his bottom lip. “We want to help you but we can’t do anything until you make your choices.”

“So now you’ll let me make my own choices.”

“Peter…” Phil snapped. Clint grabbed his husband’s wrist and squeezed in warning. Phil visibly deflated. “Please just think about it and don’t be afraid to come to us when you make a decision. We’ll hash everything out but we need to make a plan. Just… sleep on it or something, alright?”

“Does this mean I can go to my room now?”

“Yeah… yeah just go to your room,” Phil said, waving his free hand in a gesture of defeat. 

Peter hurried to the front hallway to grab his things and escape to his room, trying very hard not to listen to his parents murmuring to each other in low voices as he banged his way up the stairs. 

“We should have said more than that.”

“I know, but that’s all we can do for now.”

“Why doesn’t he trust us?”

“Well he’s not the only one who’s been keeping secrets.”

He slammed his door shut as soon as he could.


	9. Chapter 9

Peter slammed his door shut and tried not to think about what he had heard his parents say. At this point, he wasn’t all that surprised by the thought of his parents keeping secrets from him. Accountants and stay at home dads didn’t keep tabs on their children and know their every move and they certainly didn’t know people who could get him into the business of heroic crime fighting.

He sat down on his bed and stared at his hands for a long time before he noticed the shaking. As soon as he started paying attention to the tremors, he realized that his entire body was shaking and he had to make himself lay back before he fell over bonelessly. The ceiling looked blurry, and he could feel his heart thumping in his chest and throat. There were plenty of clean clothes in his closet, protein bars in one of his desk drawers, a refillable water bottle somewhere under his bag. If he wanted to, he could run away right now.

He was up off his bed and across to his window before he could finish the thought, shoving it open and looking down at the sidewalk outside. It would be easy to jump down and make a break for it. He wasn’t entirely sure where he would go - maybe Gwen’s house even though he was fairly sure that she wouldn’t know how to help him. Maybe he could go to Dr. Connors although that would be more than a little presumptuous, and Dr. Connors had enough community pull that he could, conceivably, get Peter taken away from his parents if he thought they were a danger to him. 

That made him pause, because as freaked out as he was about this whole situation, he didn’t want to leave his parents. He tipped back away from the window and sat down hard on the floor, staring up at the moon outside. Just a couple of hours ago he was fixing a decade old scientific equation and giving new energy to a potentially life-saving discovery. Now he was sitting on his floor thinking about running away from the people that had saved him from the foster-care system and given him a comfortable, supported life. 

The door to his bedroom opened and he twisted around without getting up. His dad was standing there, looking a bit wild, but calming when he saw him on the floor.

“Dad,” Peter said.

“Peter, thank god you’re still here,” his dad said. He didn’t come into the room and stayed leaning against the doorway — more in an exhausted slouch than casual.

“You thought I was going to run away,” he extrapolated.

“Yeah,” his dad answered honestly. “Can I come in?”

Peter looked back towards the window and the moon and the promise of being able to escape from this whole situation. “I don’t… think so,” he answered.

“Okay.”

He turned around again. Clint still stayed in the doorway, watching him carefully and sadly. “You aren’t going to come in anyway?”

“You said I couldn’t come in mso I won’t. Do you want me to go away?” 

Peter didn’t say anything for a long minute and looked back down at his hands. They were still shaking.

“Peter?”

“What kind of secrets are you and Pop keeping from me?” he asked bluntly.

Clint sighed heavily and ran a hand over his face. He looked old. He _was_ old… turned fifty just a few months ago. “I don’t think that now is a good time to talk about it. If you still want to bring it up in the morning we can discuss it, alright?”

“I’d really like to know now,” Peter answered stubbornly.

“Peter…”

“Is it so bad that you can’t just tell me?” he snapped.

Clint looked hurt by that, and immediately dropped his eyes to the ground like Peter had seen him do the few times that Pop got mad enough at him for them to fight. “It’s not that it’s… bad, Peter. It’s just that it’s going to be a lot to take in and I don’t want to do it without Phil here.” He sighed again and glanced over his shoulder in the direction of his room where Phil was probably getting ready for bed. “I know that you probably won’t sleep after all this or you’re thinking about running away, but I swear we’ll talk about it in the morning when everything doesn’t feel so surreal, okay?”

“…. fine,” he said. 

“I’ll see you in the morning then,” Clint said. Peter stood up and started getting his things together for bed even though he knew he wouldn’t sleep. “Goodnight, Peter. I… I love you.”

Peter didn’t look away from his closet. “Goodnight, Dad.”

He heard his dad make some kind of quiet noise that sounded pained. “Okay.” 

The door shut and Peter finished getting ready for bed.

— — — 

Phil was laying on the bed with a book in his hands and his reading glasses perched on his nose. He’d read the same line at least eight times. 

“How’s he doing?” he asked when Clint came back in the room and shut the door behind himself.

“Well he’s not trying to run at least,” Clint answered through the material of his shirt as he tugged it off over his head. 

“You’re almost out of ointment,” Phil reminded him as his husband slumped into the bathroom in his jeans and turned on the faucet. He wiggled out of his pants while he waited for the water to warm up. 

“I know.”

Phil watched Clint go about his nightly routine, book forgotten in his lap. Brush teeth, wash face, pick out a ratty tshirt to wear, grab the tin of ointment, flop down on the bed and drop the ointment in Phil’s lap. He set the book aside while Clint got himself situated on his back and flipped the lid on the medicine. He scooped some out onto his fingers and started rubbing it gently over the scars on Clint’s side. “He said something that upset you,” he noted.

“This whole situation upsets me,” Clint groused. 

“What did he say?”

“He wants to know what we’ve been keeping from him. I said we’d talk about it in the morning. Ow.”

Phil moved his hand away from a bruise along the edge of one of the scars. “You ran into a counter again.”

“Yeah, it’s the same damn one at the kitchen. There’s a new girl and she didn’t know to not hang stuff up over that one.” 

Phil made a quiet noise of understanding and went back to his work. “I want Natasha to train him.”

“He’s going to want to meet Tony.”

“I know but… I think that it would be wise for him to meet Natasha. Heightened agility and sensitivity are kind of her forte.”

“They’re mine too,” Clint reminded poutily.

“Not anymore,” Phil said.

“Ouch. You didn’t have to remind me about it,” his husband answered.

Phil just smiled slightly and put the lid back on the tin, work done, and tried to pass it off as a joke. He’d never been able to find it funny that Clint was rather permanently incapable of doing what he had always done. Clint’s fiftieth birthday had been a moment of clarity when Phil had come to terms with the fact that they were both on the wrong side of a century worth of years and, horrible, mutilating accident or not, they would both have been confined to desk work or retired by this point. 

“Do you want me to ask Natasha to be here in the morning?” Clint asked. 

“No. I don’t want to give him too much at once. We can ask if he would be willing to train with her.”

“She’ll chew him up and spit him out.”

“She does that with everyone.”

Clint was quiet, staring up at the ceiling and running his fingers just beyond the shiny line of ointment on his side while he waited for it to dry enough to put his shirt on. “She’s still beautiful.”

Phil rolled over onto his side so he could trace absent patterns over Clint’s shoulder and collarbone that were nearest him. “She is.”

“Young looking.”

“She’s not.”

“No, but she looks it.”

“Are you getting jealous?” Phil tried to tease.

“What’s not to be jealous of?” Clint murmured. 

The older man sighed and put a finger under his husband’s chin so he could make Clint meet his eyes. “You’re still beautiful. Even if you are fifty years old, with an almost full grown kid, and you own house in a neighborhood like a normal dad. Don’t go getting self-esteem issues on me now.”

Clint grimaced and put a hand in Phil’s face to shove him away. “Don’t pull that rom-com crap on me.”

Phil caught his wrist and pulled his hand away enough to be able to kiss his palm gently, then his fingertips that had lost their major callouses years ago, though his knuckles that still bore tiny white scars from years worth of fist fighting. “I think there’s some truth in rom-coms.” Clint snorted. “No matter how this turns out, I still love you, I still love Peter, and I still love that you decided to be his father with me, and I would change nothing about what we’ve done together.”

Clint groaned theatrically, “You are so cheesy.” He managed a smile. “But I love you too.”

Phil leaned over to kiss his lips gently and when Clint tried to pull him in for something a little more spicy, he pulled back. “Nothing too sexy until that ointment dries.”

Clint flopped with his limbs spread out in a decidedly unattractive sprawl. “Now we sound old. Do you have any meds that you need to take? How long until we’re both stuck on viagra?”

Phil laughed and gently touched the scars to see if there was anything sticky left. “There’s nothing wrong with getting old and just being content with each other.”

“Content my ass,” Clint muttered.

“I am very content with your ass. You’re dry. Do you want to put a shirt on or take the boxers off?”

Clint was already busily pulling off his underwear.

— — — 

Peter didn’t sleep at all and part of having some kind of super human hearing now meant that he was pretty damn sure what his parents were getting up to but he tried not to think about it too hard. He could hear when they both woke up in the morning and were moving around down stairs but he stayed in bed for a while even though his adrenaline was telling him to get up and figure out what was going on. Eventually he levered himself out of bed and changed into something other than his pajamas and made his way downstairs.

His parents were doing what they always did every other morning. Dad was making breakfast, Pop had his paper and his coffee. The only difference was that Pop wasn’t dressed to go to the office and Dad was in his day clothes instead of his pajamas. 

“Morning,” he said when he sat down. Dad immediately put a plate of eggs and hashbrowns in front of him followed by a glass of orange juice. He picked at them while he watched his parents studiously avoiding his eyes. “Do I have to eat this before you say anything?”

“Eat your breakfast,” Pop said.

“Eat _yours_ ,” Clint commanded as he snatched the morning paper out of Phil’s hands and replaced it with a fork. 

“I was getting to it,” Phil grumbled. 

“Not going to work today?” Peter asked.

“I have more important things to do,” Phil answered. 

Peter started shoveling eggs and potatoes into his mouth, but it didn’t taste like much and he could feel his dad watching him worriedly. He slowed down a little bit, but the second he stopped he started to feel sick. He put his fork down before he finished even half of his breakfast. “I’m finished.”

Clint didn’t press him to finish the rest of his food, swept the plate out from underneath his nose, and went about washing the dishes. Phil continued to eat at his normal pace. Clint hadn’t eaten anything and didn’t set aside a plate for himself. Peter fidgeted, and no one spoke until Phil had finished his breakfast and helped Clint wash the rest of the dishes and put everything away.

“Let’s go to the living room,” Phil said blandly. Peter followed his pop but Clint vanished down the hallway to the closet while Peter sat down on the couch and Phil took the arm chair instead. Peter could hear his dad moving stuff around and when he came back to the living room he was carrying a long, black case and a safe box that Peter had always assumed held emergency cash and their social security cards.

“Did you think about what you want to do last night?” Phil asked when Clint sat down, also on the couch but close to the arm chair so he could reach across and touch his husband if he wanted to. 

“No,” Peter answered truthfully.

Phil nodded once and glanced over at Clint who gave him the go-ahead motion. Phil took a deep breath and glanced up at the ceiling like he was praying to something for patience. “You know about the Avengers.”

“Yeah,” Peter answered hesitantly even though it wasn’t a question.

“And the Battle of Manhattan I assume is covered in your school curriculum.”

“Yeah.”

Phil reached over and squeezed Clint’s hand. Clint didn’t respond to the gesture and was looking down at his lap. “We were in the Battle of Manhattan.”

“What did you get stuck in your office building?” Peter asked.

“No, Peter. We were _in_ the Battle of Manhattan. Well… I was, peripherally. Clint… was in it. Honey…” Phil was running his thumb over Clint’s hand and his husband looked up sharply when he was addressed. 

“Oh. Yeah. The whole thing is really complicated, but I was part  of it, yeah,” Clint said.

“You were on the force then?” Peter asked uncomprehendingly.

“Peter…” Clint trailed off and glanced at Phil who smiled tightly. “Peter, I was an Avenger.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why hello there  
> long time no chapter

Peter looked between his parents. They were serious, Clint looking down at his hands as soon as he dropped that bombshell and not looking at him, Phil staring hard at Peter like he was daring his son to say something stupid. So of course Peter said the first thing that popped into his head. “But the Avengers are superheroes.”

“Yes, they are,” Phil answered.

“Superheroes have superpowers. The most super thing I’ve ever seen you do was that time that you flipped three pancakes in one skillet.” 

Clint huffed quietly like he wanted to be offended, but also laugh. Phil just narrowed his eyes more. Clint finally looked up at Peter, and there was a small smile on his face like the kind that parents get when they want to explain something very serious, but can’t decide if their kid is ready for it yet. “The Avengers weren’t all super powered. I was in the Battle of Manhattan and one of the original Avengers.”

“… How?” Peter watched his dad, the retired cop who apparently wasn’t a cop at all, place the black case that he had brought from the closet down on the ground, key in a code on the tiny number pad on the side, and flip it open.

“This is my bow. I was Hawkeye, archer marksman,” Clint said quietly. He pulled out the bow and settled it on his lap, running his fingers over it gently. He lingered in a few of the tiny gouges and dings. “I am retired… but not from the policeforce. Your pop and I were both part of SHIELD, the agency that started the Avengers.”

“No one likes SHIELD,” Peter stated, eyes fixed on the bow in his dad’s lap.

Clint actually did laugh slightly at that. Phil made a pained expression. “No one has ever liked SHIELD,” Phil replied, “but we did good work for a lot of people. The general public just wasn’t too happy about a secret government agency running most of the world.” 

“So… how did you get to be an Avenger if you were a SHIELD guy?” Peter asked. “Or… agent… were you called agent?”

“Yeah. Agent Barton and Agent Coulson,” Clint answered. “I wasn’t… hm,” he glanced at Phil for help and his husband shrugged and made a little motion with his hand to prompt him to continue. “There are different kinds of agents, Peter. Phil dealt more with the paperwork side of things, kind of like management in a company. I was… I was technically called a Specialist. Which means that I was the one who went out and got things done.”

Peter leaned back on the couch and forced himself to get comfortable. It didn’t work out very well; his hands stayed clenched by his legs. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Phil moved from his chair to the couch, sitting beside his husband so he could run his hand gently over Clint’s back. “SHIELD does do a lot of things that the public could consider suspicious. We ran interference with terrorist groups, slavers, drug rings, and so on. Sometimes that meant that we needed someone to remove the leaders of those groups from power.”

“You killed people,” Peter said bluntly. He tried to sound nonchalant about it, but the words caught in his throat and he glanced away when he said it.

“We both did, Peter, but it was more my job than Phil’s,” Clint said. He reached out and put a hand on Peter’s knee. “It was for a reason. We were soldiers, just not in the army or the marines. We did what had to be done for the country to continue and for innocent people to not be hurt.” 

“The Avengers aren’t killers,” Peter stated.

Clint sighed heavily and leaned back against Phil’s side. “Technically, they are. But not anymore, really. Captain America killed people, Iron Man stopped making weapons because they were being used to kill innocent people. All of the Avengers have killed people. You don’t become a superhero until you’ve gone through serious shit.”

“And you did.”

“I did. So did Phil.” 

Peter looked away from his parents, towards the stairs like he could wish himself upstairs to his room. He took several deep breaths; his parents didn’t try to talk to him or make him say something, but he knew they were watching him. After a few moments, he turned around slightly. “Can I touch your bow?” he asked. Clint placed it in his hands immediately. He ran his fingers over it, realizing that it wasn’t painted wood like he thought it was. It was some kind of metal that was cool to the touch, which made him wonder what his dad had been fighting that was strong enough to leave so many dings in it. 

“The teachers never really mentioned Hawkeye in history class,” he said after a while. 

“SHIELD did it’s best to keep Hawkeye and Black Widow out of the media,” Phil answered. “They were SHIELD operatives before they went on to become Avengers, and we wanted to still be able to send them on missions.”

“Missions… like a super spy,” Peter said.

“Kind of,” Clint murmured. “Natasha was always more of a spy than I was. I just shot stuff.”

“So you were…” 

“An assassin, Peter. I was an assassin. And I was good at it,” Clint answered. 

Peter looked down at the bow. 

“Peter…”

“So you killed people with this?” 

“Yes, I did.”

He wordlessly held it back out to his dad. Clint took it with a slightly pained expression while his hands ran over it like he was making sure that nothing about it had changed while it had been out of his grasp.

Phil leaned forward and gently stopped Clint’s hands from fluttering nervously over his bow. “I know this is a lot for you to take in, Peter, but we wanted you to know.”

“You only want me to know because you think there’s something wrong with me,” Peter murmured.

“Well…” Phil drifted off. He started trailing his fingers up and down Clint’s hand and forearm. “We are worried that there’s something wrong with you, and we want you to know that whatever you are going to face, we are prepared to deal with it with you. We want to help you.”

“But if this hadn’t happened you wouldn’t have told me at all.” Neither of his parents said anything or even looked at him. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He stood up.

“Sit down,” Clint snapped. 

He sat back down immediately.

“It’s true that we wouldn’t have told you if we didn’t think that you needed to know. There are a lot of things that parents keep from their children, just like anyone else,” Clint said. “Phil, could you hand me the case please, babe?” He paused to accept his bow case from Phil and carefully pack away his weapon. Peter stayed quiet. “You aren’t entitled to know anything about us, but we want you to know things so that you know that we want to help you. We want to protect you, and give you the tools that you need to take care of yourself.”

“Then why haven’t you given me any ‘tools’ before now? Because I’m pretty damn sure that I could have used some super hero training when I was busy getting punched by kids at school almost every day,” Peter replied tightly.

Clint’s jaw clenched and he looked sharply at his husband. “We disagreed on that choice. We decided that schoolyard bullies weren’t as big of a problem, and certainly nothing that you needed to know hand to hand combat for. But if you have super powers now, or something that equates to them, we don’t want you to be unprepared if you chose to use them for something other than jumping out your window.”

“And you would teach me?” he asked blandly. 

“I couldn’t. Well, I could teach you the basics, but not much further than that,” Clint answered. “Phil could teach you, but he’s getting up in age, aren’t you, babe?” He patted Phil’s knee in an obvious attempt to lighten the atmosphere somewhat. 

Phil grabbed his hand and held it tightly in his. “We have a friend who can train you. Close quarters combat is her speciality. She’s kept an eye on you—without us asking her to before you complain about us not trusting you—and she would be willing to teach you a few tricks.”

“And who might that be?”

“The Black Widow,” Clint answered.

“As in the Avenger Black Widow,” Peter stated.

“Yes. As in the Avenger Black Widow.”

Peter let out a long sigh and leaned back in his seat. “I guess you know her from when you were on the Avengers then.”

“No, we knew her before then. She and I were partners when we were agents in SHIELD, long before the Avengers happened,” Clint said. “We haven’t spoken in a while, but she let us know that there was something up.”

“I want to think about this,” Peter said slowly. 

“However long you need,” his pop said gently. “I know it’s a lot for you to take in all at once, but we’re here for you just like we’ve always been. We don’t want you to think you have to keep this from us anymore.”

“Can I go to my room now?”

“Yeah, sure,” Clint said.

Peter retreated quickly to his room, leaving his parents on the sofa in the living room. He closed his door quietly and leaned his forehead against it. He felt like he needed to catch his breath, like he’d run for too long and couldn’t breathe. “Avengers,” he huffed out. 

Once he decided he was fully functional again, he threw himself into his desk chair and started researching the Avengers, most notably the original six: Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Black Widow, and Hawkeye. When he pulled up the pictures of Hawkeye, though there weren’t many to choose from, he could see his dad’s face. It would have been obvious if they had ever covered Hawkeye in class, but he distinctly remembered his teacher rambling on about patriotism and Captain America when they covered the Avengers in recent history. 

There wasn’t a lot to go on, starting from the Battle of Manhattan. There were some fringe blogs and newspaper reports here and there that claimed to have insider information about Hawkeye somehow being involved in the attack from Loki’s end, but Peter closed them out pretty quickly. There were press releases and conferences and interviews; sometimes Hawkeye was in the background, sometimes he was in the front, but he was rarely recorded speaking and in most of the pictures he just looked irritated at being there. Peter laughed slightly at one of the pictures he found and the comments about how Hawkeye just looked pissed. He’d seen the same expression so many times when his dad was really just day dreaming. 

Black Widow and Hawkeye usually appeared together when they were both in a shot. They seemed to stay near each other almost constantly, when one was around, the other was at their side. She was slightly less concealed from the public eye than he was, but that seemed to be mostly from the public’s interest in the only woman on the original team. She was a beautiful young woman; he guessed she would be in her early or mid forties at this point, probably not as fast or as good in combat as she had been in the beginning. She disappeared around the same time that Hawkeye did.

He found a major press release that centered around Hawkeye and his apparent “outing” as gay. The reports on it made a big deal about a gay superhero and asked him all sorts of questions about how he was being affecting the lives of the children that looked up to him. All of his recorded answers were short and to the point, usually tearing nosy reporters a new one if they wanted to know too much about his partner. 

There was only one picture that had started the whole thing, a shot that looked like it was taken post-fight, Hawkeye covered in dirt and kissing a man in a suit. Peter smiled slightly at his parents. They would have already been married by then, if he remembered their anniversary date correctly. 

Hawkeye went back to being largely ignored after that. The Avengers added a few more superheroes to the mix, and even though Hawkeye was still the only completely human one on the team, he was criticized for it more than lauded for the extra hard work he had to put in to keep up. The next big event related to Hawkeye included a picture.

He could tell it was hid dad on a stretcher, the other Avengers gathered around him, Black Widow at his side. Her hands were covered in blood and even in the grainy shot, he could tell that the blood had come from his father’s torso. There was an oxygen mask over his face and straps around his arms and legs. Captain America held his bow awkwardly and Thor had his quiver. 

There were a few reports after that, mostly from major news networks that informed the public that Hawkeye was retiring due to the injuries he had sustained. The Avengers made bland comments on how important he had been to the team and what a shame it was to lose him. The Black Widow vanished almost completely after that. He knew that she was still part of the team, but she stayed out of pictures, she didn’t show up for press releases, and the paparazzi never caught her at a coffee shop nibbling on a bagel like they had when she went out with Hawkeye. There were no reports on Hawkeye’s husband, but there hadn’t really been any to begin with. 

It was past lunch time when he finished and sat back in his chair. The picture of his dad being carted away from the battlefield was still up on his screen. At least he knew that his parents hadn’t been lying about Clint retiring. In a way, they hadn’t really lied about much. They had just twisted the truth and left out important parts, like how Clint hadn’t been in “police work” so much as “superhero work,” and apparently assassin work before that.

He ran a hand over his face and groaned. He just sat there with his hand over his eyes for several moments, trying very hard not to think about anything, but when he opened his eyes the picture was still on his screen and he could hear her parents moving around downstairs. His superhero dad and his secret agent pop. He exited out of his internet browser and stood up. 

The least he could do was give it a shot.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for anything that sound stupid in the tiny combat scene. It's been a really long time since I attempted any sort of hand to hand combat, and I'm beyond rusty on what goes where. 
> 
> Also, I'm obviously not a doctor or anything even remotely medical related, so everything I say about the way Clint is reacting to his injury, or how it's hurting him, is entirely based upon which muscles I think hurt worse after a workout. Very scientific, I know.

“You’re acting like it’s my first day of kindergarten,” Peter muttered as he watched his dad go through his backpack again to make sure he had everything that Clint deemed necessary for his first day with the Black Widow. 

“Well I didn’t get to send you off to your first day of kindergarten,” Clint said snippily. 

Peter groaned and put his head down on his arms on the kitchen island. His dad had been tense all day. He’d even snapped at Phil when he’d put a cup in the dishwasher wrong. “You don’t have to come with me.”

“No, but I want to. And that’s the end of that,” his dad replied. “Okay, take your snack and put it in the front pocket so it won’t get squished.”

“Dad,” Peter sighed. “I can put a snack in my backpack just fine.” Clint stared at him blankly until he sighed and tucked the protein bar and apple away like he had been told. He shouldered his backpack and spread his arms out wide. “Are we ready to go or do you need to go through my backpack again?”

“Watch your tone, mister,” Clint muttered. He grabbed his keys out of the keybasket in the middle of the island and lead the way out to his car.

Peter tried to turn on music while they were driving, but Clint was quick to turn it off, and Peter didn’t dare try again. Clint muttered curses at other drivers as they went. Peter stared out the window and absently kept track of the directions on his head. 

They finally pulled up in front of an old, dilapidated gym that looked empty. Several of the windows were broken, and wood had been nailed across the front door.

“Are you sure this is right?” Peter asked.

“Definitely sure,” Clint answered. He hauled himself slowly out of the driver’s side of the car.

Peter gripped the straps of his backpack tightly. “How are we supposed to get in?”

“Around the back. Come on.” 

Clint led the way to the other side of the gym where there was an unblocked door. He pushed it open, and it swung on silent hinges. 

The inside of the gym looked nothing like the outside. It was clean, well lit, and contained what looked like expensive work out equipment to Peter’s untrained eye. There was a woman at the center of the boxing ring in the middle of the large main room, stretching down to place her hands flat against the floor. 

“Place looks better than it did last time I was here,” Clint said in greeting.

She straightened up. She didn’t look a day older than twenty-five. “Stark is willing to hand out blank checks. I thought I’d keep it up in case I needed to use it again. I come here often enough.” She slipped gracefully between the boxing ring’s ropes. “Peter, it is a pleasure to finally meet you. I am Natasha Romanoff.” She did not offer her hand to shake.

He shifted his backpack on his shoulders. “Uh. I’m Peter Coulson, but you already knew that so… it’s nice to meet you too.” 

She looked at his dad with slightly raised eyebrows. “Are you planning to stay to watch?”

Clint shrugged. “Thought I might as well. It’s not like I have much else to do.”

A strange, pained look crossed her face for a moment, but it vanished quickly. “Well we should get started then. Come, Peter, let’s get you stretched out and ready.”

He followed her back to the middle of the boxing ring after dropping his backpack down on a small sofa. His dad took a seat beside it. She forced him through several complicated stretches that made his muscles angry before deeming him prepared enough for whatever basics she had chosen.

“Would you like to join us, Clint?” she asked when she had finished stretching Peter.

“Hell yeah I’d like to, but I can’t,” he answered dismissively. 

Her lips pressed together in a thin line for a moment. “I think you could.”

“Of course you do. Peter’s going to get cold before you even start warming him up if you don’t get to it,” he said, waving a hand at his son. 

“You have an hour to warm up,” she stated. Clint raised his eyebrows at her imperious command, but she was already turning away from him and instructing Peter to settle himself into whatever he deemed a combat ready stance. 

Natasha was a tough teacher. She shoved Peter around when she decided he needed to move, she forced him to do the same movements over and over and over again, and she didn’t even let him hit anything; but even through the pain of his muscles being abused in new, unfamiliar ways, he could see her glancing over at his dad. Clint had spent most of the time watching them with fake nonchalance that Peter recognized from the times that his pop got mad and Clint tried to act like it didn’t bother him. Roughly halfway through Peter’s first lesson, Clint lowered himself to the floor and started stretching quietly. Natasha had a smirk on her face when he moved from his chair.

She was smacking Peter’s arms down to show him yet again how he was positioning them incorrectly when she began speaking to Clint again. “I would have thought that all of your athletic sex with Coulson would have kept you limber.” Clint grunted and ignored her. Peter was glad he was flushed enough from the exercise to hide his blush. “You know after men hit a certain age, they have more difficulty-”

“Yes, thank you, Tasha. I am aware,” Clint huffed. He stood up slowly and stretched his arms like he was going to raise them over his head, but stopped when they were just parallel to the floor with a wince. 

“You can go higher than that,” Natasha stated as she swept Peter’s feet out from underneath him and he hit the mat with a surprised yelp. 

“I really can’t right now,” he answered tightly. 

“Pick yourself up, Peter. Run through the punching drill again, and do it _right_ ,” Natasha stated. She slipped between the ropes of the boxing ring. Clint didn’t move when she approached him and took his wrists carefully in her slim hands. She slowly began raising his arms, and Peter stopped trying to pay attention to what he’d been told to do. Clint’s breathing became noticeably labored as she stretched him very slowly and carefully.

“Stop. Stop, Tasha,” he hissed out when she’d moved his arms maybe three inches higher. 

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty fucking sure,” he snapped. 

She began to lower his arms slowly until they were by his sides again. “Peter, that doesn’t look like the drill I told you to do.”

“Uh.” 

“Get started.”

He obligingly moved into position. Natasha spoke quietly to his dad in what sounded like Russian, which wasn’t entirely surprising, but he was surprised when his dad answered back in the same language. Her words were quiet and sounded gentle, while he spoke more sharply at first, before fading to something that sounded defeated and made Peter try to focus on making perfect punches. He made it through two sets of the punching drill before Natasha stopped him.

“That’s enough, Peter. Let’s see if your old man still has it.”

She slid into the ring easily, and Peter let himself out. Clint took a bit more time to get into the ring, grimacing when he bent over and stood back up. He had barely managed to right himself when Natasha threw a punch at him. Peter almost yelled, but his dad had already deflected it easily. 

“Give me a second, goddamn it,” he snapped.

“You won’t get a second in-”

“I’m not a junior agent, Tasha, just out of practice.”

He made his way to the middle of the mat, rolling his shoulders while Natasha prowled around him. He seemed unconcerned with having her moving while he remained stationary. Peter sat down in his dad’s vacated seat, but stood up again when the restless feeling in the air got to him. 

Natasha struck again when she was behind Clint, a foot kicking out for the backs of his knees. He turned and stepped away just enough for her to miss, and they were face to face again. 

“That was rude,” he deadpanned.

She smiled sharply with her hands held up in loose fists that she could either open to slap with her palms or close to punch. “Just testing your reflexes.”

Clint had yet to fall into a recognizable combat stance, standing easily with his hands at his sides. She took two jabs at his chest, both of which he deflected swiftly and finally brought his hands up to defend himself. They continued like this for a few more punches, her attacking, and him reacting swiftly, but with little movements, and no motion to attack her.

“Are you going to slap at my hands all night?” she asked.

“Only if you keep making it so easy.”

“Forgive me for trying to give you time to remember what hand to hand feels like,” she said with a smile.

“You’re forgiven,” he teased.

“Good.” She attacked him in a flurry of punches and kicks, all of which he either managed to deflect or direct to a part of his body that was less likely to leave him crippled. “I’d like it if you attacked me back, Clint,” she said after a couple minutes. 

The next time she punched for his face, he knocked her hand wide and brought the other one to backhand her sharply across the face. Peter’s heart leapt into his throat, but Natasha was smiling again, eyes bright and wide. 

“Whoops,” Clint said without a hint of remorse.

“Now you’re being rude.”

“Are you going to make me apologize?”

“Of course.”

Peter watched as they traded blows faster than he had ever seen his dad move. Both managed to get in punches, slaps, and kicks. At one point, he was fairly certain that Natasha bit his dad’s hand. Blood trickled from small cuts made by fists and nails, but so far there hadn’t been any crucial injuries.

And the moment he thought that, Natasha twisted her body and managed to knock Clint’s knees out from underneath him. He landed solidly on his hands and knees on the mat, and she twisted her body to bring a drop kick down on his head. Rather than rolling away, Clint raised his arms quickly to protect his head, and let out a sharp, pained noise. Natasha forced herself to fall backwards immediately, taking the brunt of her kick away from Clint’s arms and stumbling backwards on the mat. Peter’s dad dropped his hands immediately and closed his arms around his torso.

“Fuck,” he hissed out. “That hurt. Goddamn.”

Natasha crouched beside him with her hands on his shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“Mostly,” he growled between clenched teeth. 

“Peter, could you get a heating pad out of my bag, please?” she ordered tersely. 

“That won’t help much. Just give me a couple of minutes,” Clint said. Nevertheless, Peter made his way to Natasha’s bag, or what he assumed was her bag since it didn’t belong to him or his dad, and found the box of stick on heating pads. When he brought it back, she had forced Clint onto his back and rucked his shirt up. Peter had seen the scars before, but not often, and never long enough to really _look_ at them. 

Natasha apparently hadn’t either. She looked like she was massaging his side gently, but her fingers moved hesitantly over the raised skin, and her lips were pressed into a tight line. Clint had his right arm across his eyes, since it was easier to move the arm on the uninjured side of his body. “You healed well enough,” Natasha stated as she held out her hand for Peter to give her the heating pad. He let himself between the ropes and crouched beside his dad, feeling helpless, but wanting to do something. 

“Peter, would you please hold down the top of his pants while I put this on?” she asked.

He nodded mutely and pushed down the elastic of his dad’s workout shorts just enough to reveal the scarring that made its way down his hip. Natasha unrolled the heating pad and pressed it carefully over the bulk of the scaring. Clint had remained silent the entire time except for labored breathing that could have either been from the workout or from pain. 

“Dad… do you want me to call Pop?” Peter asked after a few moments of silence in which time Natasha repeatedly smoothed her hands over the pad as if she was able to force it to work faster through touch alone.

“No,” Clint snapped. “I’m fine.”

Peter clenched his jaw and sat back on his heels. 

Clint huffed out a sigh after a second. “Sorry. I’m fine. Phil doesn’t need to come get me, I just need a few minutes.”

“It’s been a few minutes already,” Natasha stated.

“A few _more_ minutes, Tasha, thank you for your addition to the conversation.”

“Can you stand?”

“Do you know how many abdominal muscles it takes to stand up from lying down?” he snarked. She fell silent. Clint still wasn’t looking at either of them, face hidden by his arm. “I told you this was a bad idea.”

“You did better than I honestly expected.”

He snorted. “Well that’s kind of you. What were you expecting?”

“I wasn’t expecting you to try at all.”

He lowered his arm from his eyes and raised his eyebrows at her. “You calling me a coward?”

“Never,” she said softly. “But I would call you a survivor of extreme situations, and a victim of PTSD that could have been triggered by getting back in a ring.”

“Oh please. My worst memories of fights never happened at your hands.”

“I did shoot you that one time.”

“Good thing we’re not using guns then.” Clint finally looked at Peter, who was watching them with wide eyes. “I shot her too, we’re even.”

“That’s… good to know, I guess,” Peter stuttered. “Do you often shoot your friends?”

“Only the ones I care about,” his dad answered with a grin. “I tried to shoot Phil too. Missed, of course. He got me though.” 

Natasha smoothed Clint’s sweaty hair back from his forehead. “It’s a pattern with you.”

“He started it.” They shared a smile over some secret story Peter was sure he’d never know. 

“I guess this means we’re done for the day,” he said.

“I think so,” Natasha said. “You’ll need to come back every day though.”

“Really?” he asked with barely concealed distaste.

“You should teach him at the Tower. Maybe swap him with Stark a couple of days a week,” Clint suggested.

“That might not be a good idea. Stark’s not the best babysitter,” she said.

“Stark? Like Tony Stark?” Peter perked up. 

“Asshole,” Clint muttered.

Natasha laughed quietly. “I’d demand Banner’s supervision if I were you.”

“Bruce Banner?” Peter squeaked.

“Yes, Bruce Banner and Tony Stark,” Clint said.

Peter knew he was smiling brightly, and he could see his dad smiling because of it. Clint patted Peter’s knee as best he could reach from where he was. “I could learn from Tony Stark and Bruce Banner.”

“I’m making no promises. We’d have to run it past your pop first.”

“And Stark.”

“Stark would love to have someone follow him around and fawn over him. Banner stopped doing that ages ago. He needs a new fanboy.”

“He might take offense to me being in his lab though.”

“Still pissy about Pepper?”

“Always. But I don’t think he minds too much.”

“What?” Peter broke in.

“Nothing, Peter. Help me up.” Clint let Natasha take one hand, and Peter the other. Together they heaved him to his feet with as little bending as they could manage. He was still shaking by the time they got him on his feet, and immediately pressed his hands to his side. “We both need to shower. I’ll talk to Phil tonight, but let’s plan on Peter being back here tomorrow.”

“I’ll talk to Pepper, and she’ll talk to Stark.”

“Good idea.” He reached out and pulled Natasha into a close, full body hug. “Thanks.”

She wrapped her arms around his back and buried her face in his shoulder. “You smell gross.”

Clint laughed and released her. “You think you smell so much better, but you don’t.” He managed to get between the ropes with minimal difficulty. “I’ll text you with Phil’s decision. I’m sure he’ll be fine with it.”

“I’m sure you’ll make him be fine with it.”

“Of course I will, because we are both exceptions to the decreasing male sex drive syndrome, and I will have you know that-” he broke off and glanced at Peter, who was steadily staring at anything that was not his father, “that there are plenty of things I would tell you if my kid wasn’t here.”

“He needs to know them sometime.”

“No one wants to know about their parents’s love life, or so I’ve been told,” Clint said with a smirk.

“On that note, I would like to go now,” Peter broke in.

“Say thank you to the nice lady,” Clint said in a falsely high voice.

“Thank you,” Peter parroted.

They left Natasha in the gym, Peter with the bags slung over his shoulder. They turned on music for the ride back, and Peter worked to keep himself from asking questions about their partnership, the Avengers, Tony Stark, and everything else that had been inadvertently revealed to him the past few hours. He couldn’t help himself when they were finally nearing home.

“Do you think Tony Stark will let me near his stuff?”

“I think Stark likes to show off whenever he can, and if you learn something along the way, it’s a plus.” 

“So you know him really well?”

“I think after four years of working and living with the guy, I know him pretty well.”

“You lived in Avengers Tower?”

Clint glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “Where do you think I lived?”

“With… Pop?”

“Yeah. At Avengers Tower. He was there to keep everyone in line. Basically the only person any of those super powered monkeys would listen to.”

“Monkeys…”

“Hooligans and rabble rousers, the lot of them.”

“If you make yourself sound old too often, you’ll get stuck like that.”

“I think I’m old enough to complain about kids on my yard, and reminisce about the way things were.”

They pulled into their driveway, and Clint turned off the car, but didn’t get out for a moment. “Thank you for trying out sparring with Natasha. It makes me feel better to know that she’s taking care of you.”

Peter was entirely sure what to say, so he blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “She’s younger than I expected.”

Clint laughed and started to get out of the car. “You mean she looks younger than you expected. She’s well into her… nineties or something now. She was ancient when we met.”

“But how-”

“Russian Super Soldier serum will do that to a gal,” Clint answered. He slammed his door shut. “And you better not tell her I told you that.”

“I promise.”

“Good kid.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tried to get this one out pretty quickly so we could get started on more fun stuff. FUN STUFF TO COME SOON.

Phil was already back from work when they stepped in the house. His suit jacket hung neatly by the door, and from the smells invading the living room, he was attempting to make something edible before Clint got his hands on dinner plans. 

“When are you going to ask Pop about… y’know?” Peter asked.

“When you’re not around,” Clint answered. “You’ll try to give him those puppy eyes, and he’ll know we’re on to something.”

“I think my puppy eyes work really well.”

“I know you do, that’s why you use them all the time and he always knows what we’re up to. Go shower while I take care of whatever he’s burning.” Clint ruffled his son’s hair and shoved him lightly towards the stairs. “And put your clothes in the laundry hamper so they can actually be washed before they turn into alien life.”

When Peter disappeared into his room, Clint sighed heavily and let his body droop from exhaustion and the strain of keeping his abdominal muscles tight. He rubbed a hand over his ribs while he walked to the kitchen and found Phil leaning over something that was boiling out of control, and tossing water all over the stove. 

“Phil, just turn the heat down,” he said.

“I know that,” Phil replied, but he was quick to turn down the heat and find a rag to wipe up the excess water.

“What are you trying to make?”

“Spaghetti.”

Clint huffed quietly and turned the heat the proper level and helped Phil clean up the mess on the counter that included two jars of spaghetti sauce, one which appeared to be slightly exploded, a half empty box of spaghetti noodles, and fresh parmesan that Clint was sure was not in his kitchen that morning. “Did you get parmesan just for this?”

“I thought you might like it if you didn’t have to cook after Peter’s first session with Natasha,” Phil said with a slightly defensive posture. “And I thought you’d probably participate, which it looks like you did.”

“Yeah, she kicked my ass.”

“I trust you at least tried to hold your own.”

“As best I could, babe.” Clint snuggled up against Phil’s chest and tucked his face in the side of his partner’s neck. “She went easy on me.”

“I’m sure Peter was impressed.”

“He was until I hurt myself.”

Phil pulled back slightly and looked down at his husband. “How did you hurt yourself?”

“Just raised my arms too fast. No biggie, but it took me down pretty fast,” Clint said soothingly, but Phil was already shoving his shirt up and carefully peeling back the now-lukewarm heating pad. “Natasha put that on there. I told her it wouldn’t do much, but she insisted.”

“Of course she did,” Phil muttered as he ran his hands over the old injury, pressing gently and asking if it hurt every few seconds. Clint lied and said it was fine, so Phil jabbed him particularly hard once, and nodded like he’d proven a point when Clint yelped and batted his hand away. 

“You’re not making me feel any better when you’re _trying_ to hurt me,” he groused.

“Just checking on you, sweetie pie,” Phil said with a wide, fake smile. “Would you like to get the plates down?”

Not a single thing in the Coulson kitchen was on the top shelf. Clint was the only one who had used everything in the kitchen before. The plates were on a bottom shelf, stacked neatly by color. They’d accumulated a few different dish sets over the course of their marriage, about half of which ended up smashed during ill-advised kitchen adventures, and one memorable set that met its end when Phil hoisted Clint up on the counter during one heated evening, and they knocked the entire stack of plates off the counter entirely. 

“You should probably take a shower too,” Phil said. 

“I don’t smell that bad.”

Phil snorted and took the spaghetti off the heat, whisking it over to the sink to drain. “You never think you smell bad after you work out.”

“You never complain. You like me sweaty.”

“Only because that seems to be your natural state.”

Clint ran his hand through his hair and rubbed his hand across the back of Phil’s neck. His partner cringed away and swatted at him. “Don’t make me dump the water on you.”

“You only love me for my body.”

“Damn right I do.”

“You say the sweetest things.”

They finished putting together dinner in relative silence, moving around each other easily in the cramped space of their small kitchen. Phil was putting the finishing touches on the parmesan, and Clint took the opportunity to hug him from behind and bury his face between his shoulder blades. “Peter did well today.”

“Good.”

“I missed seeing Natasha.”

“I know you did.” Phil turned around and let Clint cuddle up against his chest. “How often is he going to see her?”

“About that…” Clint leaned back, but kept his hands on Phil’s sides, and Phil kept his hands on Clint’s hips. “I was thinking, maybe, we could let Peter spend some time with positive-ish, well, trustworthy-ish scientific role models while we’re busily expanding his superhero education.”

“Are you indirectly saying you want him to meet Stark?” Phil deadpanned.

“I might be saying that.”

Phil put on a mock thinking face, staring up at the ceiling and rubbing circles over Clint’s hips with his thumbs. “Only if Stark has reliable supervision. I don’t want him giving our son stupid ideas and blowing stuff up in his face.”

Clint smiled brightly and pecked his lips quickly. “Good. I knew you’d say yes. You’ve always like Stark.”

“I detest Stark.”

“I know, honey.”

“I want to take him to the Tower tomorrow, just for his first day,” Phil said, trying and failing to keep a detached tone of voice. 

His husband smirked. “So you can _not_ see Tony, I assume?”

“So I can be sure that either the Captain or Dr. Banner will be supervising Stark’s antics while my son is in the blast radius of his labs.”

“For Peter’s own good.”

“Absolutely.”

“No ulterior motives whatsoever.”

“No more than you had.” 

Clint snorted and laid his head on Phil’s shoulder again. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

— — — 

Peter was fairly certain that his parents were using him as a means to see old friends when Phil informed him that he would be picking him up from school and ferrying him to the Tower. 

“I want to be sure that they will let you in,” Phil said in his I’m-your-father-don’t-question-me voice. Clint had snorted from his position flipping pancakes that morning. 

“I’m sure Stark has Peter on file already, Phil,” Clint said.

“I want to be sure,” Phil insisted.

Avengers Tower was beyond intimidating, all sleek glass and windows, rising from the rest of the buildings around it imperiously. Phil seemed unconcerned with it as he pulled into a parking spot in the employee parking deck. At first, Peter thought it was a handicap spot, but when he looked closely at the sign posted in front of the spot, it said “Reserved for Agent Agent.”

“Pop?” he called as he trotted to catch up with his father making his way towards the elevators that would lead to the actual building. “Do you have your own spot here?”

“I thought he would have taken it down, but it’s quite nice to still have my spot,” Phil said blandly. “Hit floor thirty.”

“There’s more than thirty floors in this building,” Peter observed as he pushed the topmost button. 

“We have to get into the personal elevator on level thirty to go up to Stark’s more personal quarters. Business floors for the company go up to thirty. There’s an elevator that goes straight up, but you have to go through a few checkpoints to get to it, and I would rather Stark not know that I am here immediately.”

“What does he not like you or something?” Peter asked.

Phil hummed noncommittally and lead the way off the elevator when they reached their floor. The people milling about on that floor looked unconcerned by their presence, and didn’t even shoot them a second look. The next set of elevators was protected by a hand scanner that accepted Phil’s hand and opened silently. Peter followed his father into the next elevator, twisting his hands around the strap of his backpack while he waited for the doors to close and the elevator to begin moving. It was even sleeker than the first one, with seats and comfortable carpet all done in tasteful colors, but no elevator music.

“Agent Coulson, nice of you to return for a visit,” a British voice stated from thin air. Peter whipped around, looking for someone else in the elevator.

“A pleasure as always, Jarvis,” Phil replied, nonplussed.

“Pop?” Peter questioned weakly.

“Peter, this is Jarvis, an AI that Tony built to run his life. Jarvis, this is my son Peter,” Phil introduced, waving at nothingness.

“Pleasure to finally meet you, Peter Coulson,” the voice said politely.

“A real AI,” Peter breathed out. “That’s incredible.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jarvis replied. “Agent Coulson, should I inform Sir that you have arrived, or would you like to meet him yourself?”

“I think you should keep quiet about it. Where is he now?”

“Sir is currently in his workshop with Doctor Banner. I will stop you at the correct level.”

The elevator stopped smoothly just a moment later, the doors opening to a well lit, comfortable looking living room space with plenty of nice couches and a giant television. “Sir’s workshop is currently on this floor, down the left hallway.”

“Did he blow up his last one too often?” Phil asked, stepping out of the elevator. Peter followed, wide-eyed.

“It met with a variety of unfortunate fires and explosions, yes,” Jarvis replied.

Peter followed his pop down the hallway, not really listening to whatever conversation he was having with thin air. Even the hallways were high tech, walls lighting up, clean lines, what looked like an alcove that included floating chairs. Everything was bright and shiny. He was so busy looking at everything else, he almost ran into his pop when he stopped at a wall made completely of glass. Gold lettering printed on the glass said it belonged to “Stark Industries R&D” but a sticky note underneath it said “Science Bro Lair.” Even before they went inside, Peter was drooling. There didn’t seem to be anyone inside, but blueprints floated in mid air, the tables were littered with twisted metal and gadgets that he was sure he’d never see outside this room. 

The door opened after a moment and Phil stepped through like he owned the place. As soon as the soundproofing was compromised via open door, the harsh sounds of classic rock burst out of the room. Phil didn’t even flinch, but Peter’s heart was racing, mostly out of excitement, but he’d definitely been startled. 

“Jarvis, would you please turn down the music?” Phil asked politely. The music obligingly fell several notches.

“Jarvis, why’d you turn down the tunes?” a pissy voice asked from further inside the shop, sound muffled by something. A head popped up from the other side of a flipped over table that seemed to have been charred enough times to burn a few holes all the way through. The face was covered with a welding mask. “Agent Agent!” The mask flipped up and Tony Stark had a huge smile on his face as he turned off the welding torch and made his way over to them. He clasped a hand on Phil’s shoulder, and looked like he wanted to give him a huge hug, but held himself back. “And this must be mini-Agent.”

“Peter,” Peter said, taking the hand offered for a shake. “You’re… this is incredible.”

“Yes, I am,” Tony said flippantly. “Am I allowed to ask you why you’ve graced me with your presence after ignoring me for years?”

“I talked to you last week, Stark,” Phil said.

“For the first time in _years_ , Agent. I don’t think that counts.” 

Phil glanced up at the ceiling and huffed a breath. “I came to ask you for a favor.”

“I love it when you owe me,” Tony said with a grin.

“I want you to let Peter shadow you for a few weeks,” Phil said bluntly.

Tony’s eyebrows rose, and he glanced at Peter out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t let munchkins in my lab.”

“He can keep up.”

“I don’t think you want your son in a place that’s regularly blown up. Isn’t that why you you retired?”

Phil’s lips thinned. “No, that’s not why. And that is a concern that I have, which is why I would also like Dr. Banner to be present whenever Peter’s here.”

“One babysitter not enough for your boy?”

“No, the babysitter’s for you.”

“I’m hurt.”

“I’m sure. But he can keep up, and Clint and I aren’t able to challenge him academically anymore. He needs someone more…”

“Smart?”

“Hardly. He needs someone who understands his interests better than Clint or myself,” Phil said with a snort.

Tony peered at Peter through slitted eyes. “Do you think you’re smart, kid?”

Peter shrugged as modestly as he could. “I think so.”

“Why now, Agent Agent?” 

“I’m not an agent, Tony.”

“Oh please. Like Fury doesn’t call you up whenever there’s a catastrophe he can’t handle.” Tony waved a hand dismissively in Phil’s direction. “You kept your precious baby out of your work for so long. I want to know why you want him to get into it now.”

“I don’t want him in superhero work.”

“Pop, you said that it was my decision. What if I want to be a superhero?” Peter asked sharply.

Phil sighed long and hard. “I want you to be here to learn. I don’t want you here training to go out and kill bad guys or whatever inflated notions of superhero work you have.”

“You told me it was my choice,” Peter insisted.

Tony’s eyes flicked back and forth between them for a moment. “I think your Pop just wants you to be aware of everything involved in this business before you make a decision. Easy peasy. I can show you the ropes.”

“Don’t you blow up my child, Stark.”

“You have so little faith in me.” Tony waved toward the door. “You can come back and pick him up in a few hours. I think Cap might want to see you while you’re here. It’s been a while.”

“Are you kicking me out of your lab?”

“I don’t work well under pressure.”

Phil made a sort of twisted, irritated expression, but made for the door. “I’ll be back, and if I hear that one thing has blown up, even if it’s just last month’s leftover coffee, I will have your ass on a platter, Stark.”

“I look forward to it, Agent.”

The door slid shut behind Phil, and Peter found himself face to face with Tony Stark. Very literally face to face as they were nearly touching noses. “I thought you’d look more like Clint.”

“Well I am adopted… so that might have put a damper on that.”

“I offered to make them a test tube baby, you know. All that badassness shouldn’t be lost because one of them doesn’t have a uterus.”

“I’m sorry?” Peter tried.

Stark was silent for a long moment, but then his face broke into a brilliant smile. “I’m just kidding with you, kid. We’ll need to get you up to proper bad ass level now that I assume you know about your dads’s super awesome kick ass pasts.”

“I know a little bit,” he muttered. Tony started moving around the lab, and Peter was left to trail behind him like a puppy. “They didn’t tell me all that much. I know most stuff from the internet.”

“Don’t believe a thing you hear on the internet.”

“So I shouldn’t know that you and Captain America are apparently together?”

Tony gave a sharp bark of laughter. “I guess you can believe that. But a lot of the things the internet claims are wildly untrue. I know for a fact that someone was claiming that your dear dad, the older one, or whatever you call him, was our call boy for a while. For the whole team.”

“That’s…” Peter trailed off, unsure of what to say. “I don’t think I needed to know that.”

“I’m sure you didn’t, but you are going to learn _so much_ from me. Pop a squat and let’s see what you’ve got. Just throw your backpack wherever you want. Dum-E will do something with it.”


End file.
